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RASSEGNA STAMPA

Le notizie relative al debito estero e all'economia del Kenya
14 giugno 2005	THE DAILY NATION Debt waiver a misnomer Publication Date: 06/14/2005 Reports that Kenya will miss out on the debt waiver by the group of Eight most industrialised nations, better known as the G8, has raised some debate. Yet, for Kenya, several things worked against the waiver. They include corruption in high places, mismanagement of public resources and failure to meet some of the IMF/World Bank conditionalities for donor assistance. These have made it difficult to justify more external assistance. The other side, though, is the argument that, in comparative terms, Kenya is doing better than many African states. That is to say, Kenya is not a basket case and, therefore, does not deserve a waiver under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) scheme. Predictably, our leaders are now engaged in a chorus of recrimination, totally oblivious of their own role in the debacle. Many are shouting the country's good record at debt servicing as a reason for debt forgiveness, as others claim the G8 are out to economically strangle the country. But that misses the point. There is no honour in seeking a debt waiver. In fact, what the leaders should be working for is to create an environment for economic growth and where individuals can be assisted to realise their full potential. Among others, this means eliminating graft, ending mismanagement of national resources and instilling discipline into the public service. Similarly, they need to learn diplomacy. The practice where some leaders throw vitriol and insults at diplomats and representatives of donor agencies does not give the country a good name internationally. It is not the end of the road for debt forgiveness, though. Kenya can still make its case before the next G8 meeting. Tanzania and Uganda, along with 16 other African nations have done so and have been rewarded handsomely. But the bigger picture is that the country should work towards self-sufficiency and avoid the path of donor dependence, which then later forces us to behave in such a beggarly manner.
13 giugno 2005	THE STANDARD Shock as Kenya denied debt relief Monday June 13, 2005 Biketi Kikechi and Ben Agina Kenya’s exclusion from a multi-billion debt write-off by the World Bank and IMF for Africa’s poor countries was received with shock and consternation yesterday. Finance ministers from the G8 countries did not enlist Kenya among 18 poor countries whose debts will be cancelled by the three multi-lateral donors. They, however, took off the burden of repaying the debts from the shoulders of Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda — Kenya’s major trading partners. The beneficiaries are classified as Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs). Disappointment that Kenya would still have to part with Sh78 billion a year servicing debts owed to multi-lateral and bilateral lenders was compounded by the fact that it is the only country in East Africa that failed to clinch the relief deal. Kenya’s debt as of April 30 stood at Sh720 billion or 57 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product. Of the total Sh424 billion was external and Sh296 billion was domestic. The principal amount the Treasury pays every year is Sh25 billion with an additional Sh8 billion in interest and penalties. If freed through a write-off, the money could be used to turn around key sectors such as education, health and tourism. A debt-relief lobby group for Africa is sending nine members to Scotland to present the continent’s case at the G8-Leaders conference. Leaders said they felt Western economic giants wanted to emasculate the country economically. The chairman of Parliamentary House Finance committee Mutahi Kagwe said HIPC structure appeared to reward countries that have not lived up to their commitment of repaying loans to bi-lateral and multi lateral lenders. He said Kenya had always met its debt obligations but has never benefited from relief. "We have always paid our debts in spite of the economic hardships," he said. He said the principle under which HIPC was created amounts to "miscarriage of justice". The Murkurweni MP charged that it was not fair for Kenya to be penalised for continuing to pay its debt whereas countries that cannot pay are the ones whose debts are being cancelled. Assistant Minister for Trade Petkay Miriti described the situation as "very unfortunate indeed." He was concerned Kenya had met all conditions imposed by western capital over time and yet the goal posts kept changing. Miriti, claimed the aim was "to see the country lagging behind others in the region." "It will be difficult for us because our neighbours will be investing that money in services and mobilizing trade when we are servicing debts," said Miriti. The Assistant Minister urged donor countries to treat all sub-Saharan countries equally, if they were serious about the continent’s economic problems. Cabinet Minister William ole Ntimama whose docket includes the public service said the country should now work hard to survive without foreign aid. "We should consider finding ways of working without depending on aid and that can only be achieved through unity and hard work," said Ntimama. "I do not know if the reasons they usually give and that is bad governance and corruption but it will definitely hurt us," he added. Assistant minister for Finance Henry Obwocha said the Kenya was not been considered in the category of the Highly Indebted Countries but was optimistic its turn would come soon. "Kenya is not among countries that do not service its debts," said Obwocha. He promised to lead a Kenyan delegation to Geneva, Switzerland on June 20 to a debt management conference where he hopes to state the country’s case. "We hope to be considered for debt relief after this meeting," said Obwocha. Kabete MP Paul Muite called on Kenyan leaders to stop whining about the debt waiver initiated by Britain and draw up the country’s own strategy. "We should suspend payment of the debt for five years and redeploy the money to needy sectors such as Education, Health and infrastructure," Muite said. However, he explained that although this was radical move it was the only way that the country could develop. "We need to take radical steps to re-energise our economy. One such step is to suspend repayment of foreign loans," he said Former Kenya Association of Manufacturers chairman Manga Mugwe said the country would have accelerated growth had debt been cancelled. He said interests paid annually could have given provided a major economic boost to sectors such as infrastructure. He was pessimistic about the future of the East African Economic, saying Kenya needed to review its position. "The economic partnerships will not last, because you cannot sit and do business with a neighbour who has been given all advantages over you," said Mugwe. The Chambers lobby group that for many months lobbied for debt relief said its members would head for Scotland to present their case. The Chief Counsel Ababu Namwamba said the lobby has prepared a special documentary called A Mortgaged Nation to be presented to G8 leaders. "I will be there with nine members and enjoin other civil society groups from the continent to present our case," said Namwamba.
13 giugno 2005	THE STANDARD Government to continue paying the price of foreign debt Monday June 13, 2005 By John Oyuke The failure by a group of rich nations to cancel Kenya’s external debt is likely to complicate the poverty eradication and regional integration efforts. Cancellation of the country’s crushing external debt estimated at Sh402.2 billion, just slightly below the Sh404.3 billion recurrent expenditure for the 2005/06 financial year, would have offered a year of tax holiday for Kenyans. The Government’s expects to raise Sh296.1 billion directly through taxation as part of its revenue target of Sh326.1 billion or 22 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The gross expenditure includes Sh27.1 billion in aid, ministerial expenditures of Sh257 billion and Sh147.3 billion for Consolidated Fund Services which, among others, consists of Sh26.9 billion for payment of interest on domestic and foreign debt. Of the consolidated services, Sh23.4 billion is for pensions and gratuities, Sh5.3 billion for salaries, allowances and operational expenses for constitutional offices, Sh133 million in contributions to international organisations and Sh87.9 billion for debt repayment. Debt cancellation is considered important to the shift of resources to reducing poverty, hunger and disease, which are key to realising the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Kenya may soon lose its competitive edge against Uganda and Tanzania, given their treatments under arrangements such as the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative. Rwanda has been included in the HIPC initiative. Kenya is on the HIPC initiative list, but is considered to have a sustainable debt burden, according to the official HIPC initiative criteria, driven mainly by the International Monetary Fund and Word Bank. However, trade experts believe that, like Nigeria, the exclusion from HIPC is been driven more by persistent concerns about economic and political management, despite the change in leadership. State leaders had hoped to be granted some debt relief. Speaking last month before the new development, ministers Anyang’ Nyong’o, Charity Ngilu and Ochilo Ayacko said the Government would step up efforts to convince donors to cancel its debts. Nyong’o said the State would use the G8 meeting set for July to pressure for inclusion in the Global African Social Facility to Aid initiative.
12 giugno 2005	THE STANDARD Kenya may miss debt relief Sunday - June 12, 2005 Government’s minimal success in the fight against graft limits chances of debt cancellation, writes Otsieno Namwaya in London. Kenya’s chances of gaining from British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s campaign for the cancellation of Africa’s debts appear slim following an announcement that the programme will only benefit countries willing to carry out reforms to stem corruption and ensure good governance. Ian Gleeson, an officer at the Foreign Affairs office told The Sunday Standard in London that if and when it finally rolls out, the programme would only benefit governments willing to meet conditions set out by the United Kingdom. "Debt relief is going to be based on certain agreements with each government. We shall give relief only on condition that government officials agree to carry out certain reforms," Gleeson said. However, he was quick to point out that the conditions would not be laid down in a similar manner to those of the World Bank and IMF. "We are going to be more like partners with clear agreements," he said. Among other things, the programme will lay emphasis on good governance and the war against corruption, issues over which the Kenya government has been at loggerheads with outgoing British High Commissioner, Sir Edward Clay. When confronted about his vocal condemnation of graft, Clay said he was merely voicing the concerns of his government. This will be the second time the country is missing out on incentives for economic growth extended by its development partners. In 1996, Kenya failed to meet most of the conditions then required to benefit from the now moribund Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) programme fronted by the World Bank and the IMF. Blair has been seeking to have the Group of Eight richest countries relieve Africa of its $20 billion debt burden. Blair’s new initiative seems to complement the on-going Africa Debt Relief Campaign mounted by Nobel Peace Prize winner and assistant minister for Environment, Prof Wangari Maathai. Her lobbying has taken her to several countries in Europe and Asia. Since the 1990s when most development partners suspended economic aid to Kenya, the country’s debt portfolio has risen tremendously. Sometimes, interest on debts almost overshadows national Gross Domestic Product. While the external debt portfolio stabilised mainly due to the freeze on development support, domestic debt rose significantly as the government resorted to borrowing heavily from the internal market. Five years ago, Kenya’s GDP stood at $10.4 billion with an external debt of $6.34 billion. Today, the country’s external debt is estimated at $9 billion. The government reportedly uses about 40 per cent of its annual expenditure to finance interest on this debt. Five years ago, funds spent on debt servicing and interest payments totalled $706 million while money earned from the export of goods and services amounted to $2.84 billion. This was as compared to import earnings which stood at $3.57 billion. Simply put, Kenya had a net deficit of $737 million. Five years ago, the country’s current account balance which is an indicator of foreign transactions on its income stood at $326 million. Foreign debt stood at $6.34 billion of which $2.61 billion or 41 per cent was owed to the World Bank and the IMF. Last week, Blair while speaking on BBC TV said debt cancellation for Africa was bound to spark off economic development that could turn out to be "beneficial to Britain in the long run". United States President George W Bush has been reluctant to lend support to Blair’s campaign, instead offering token amounts of money for famine relief in Africa. Earlier in the week, Bush parried off Blair’s entreaties with some $674 million for emergency famine relief in the continent. This may well end the possibility of 100 per cent relief from an estimated $50 billion that Africa owes the World Bank, IMF and other international financial institutions. The United States is the biggest contributor to the World Bank and the IMF. A section of the UK media has been calling on Blair to go ahead and table his $20 billion debt relief proposal before the G8 summit next month, even if Bush fails to support it. Many have questioned Bush’s refusal to support Blair in his hour of need when the British premier nearly laid down his political career to support the US on its war against terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq.
11 giugno 2005	REPUBBLICA ON LINE [www.repubblica.it] Accordo tra gli 8 paesi più ricchi - Cancellato il debito di 18 nazioni sabato 11 giugno 2005 Londra, il G8 ha deciso di tagliare 55 miliardi dovutialla Banca mondiale e al Fondo monetario internazionale. Si tratta di somme da restituire a Banca mondiale e Fmi - Ma è solo una parte del loro indebitamento estero LONDRA - Un colpo di spugna su cinquanta miliardi di dollari. I paesi del G8 hanno deciso di cancellare il 100% del debito di 18 paesi poveri, soprattutto africani. L'accordo è stato raggiunto dai ministri delle Finanze degli otto paesi più industrializzati, riuniti a Londra. Saranno annullati immediatamente 55 miliardi di dollari, una somma che doveva essere restituita agli organismi finanziari internazionali, Banca mondiale, Fondo monetario e Banca africana di sviluppo. L'occasione giusta per essere audaci. "E' l'intesa più ampia mai raggiunta dai ministri finanziari in materia di debito e povertà", ha detto Gordon Brown, ministro delle Finanze britannico, che ha annunciato l'accordo. "Era l'occasione giusta per essere audaci", ha aggiunto, precisando che entro 12-18 mesi, potrà essere cancellato il debito di altri nove paesi. Il ministro italiano dell'Economia, Domenico Siniscalco, parla di "intesa epocale", mentre l'americano John Snow, segretario del Tesoro, lo definisce "un momento storico". Una cancellazione parziale. I paesi che beneficeranno immediatamente della cancellazione del debito sono Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Etiopia, Ghana, Guyana, Onduras, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambico, Nicaragua, Niger, Ruanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda e Zambia. Complessivamente 6 miliardi di dollari verranno cancellati dal Fondo monetario, 44 dalla Banca Mondiale e 5 dalla Banca africana per lo sviluppo. Questi 40 miliardi di dollari, però, sono solo una parte dell'indebitamento estero di questi paesi. Esso si compone, infatti, di debiti bilaterali, da restituire direttamente ai paesi ricchi che avevano prestato il denaro, e di debiti multilaterali, da pagare agli organismi internazionali. Secondo i dati della Banca Mondiale, il debito estero complessivo dei paesi dell'Africa sub-sahariana era di 231 miliardi di dollari nel 2003. Solo il 30% (circa 69 miliardi) di questa somma era dovuto ai donatori multilaterali, ossia Banca mondiale e Fondo monetario internazionale. Le reazioni nel mondo. Zambia, Malawi, Nigeria, alcune delle nazioni che hanno ottenuto la cancellazione, hanno accolto positivamente la notizia. Moderatamente soddisfatti anche i sostenitori della campagna per la cancellazione del debito. "L'accordo è una buona notizia per la gente dei 18 paesi che ne beneficieranno - ha detto Romily Greenhill, della ong ActionAid - Ma non avrà alcun effetto per quei milioni di persone che vivono negli altri paesi (almeno 40) che hanno bisogno di un'immediata cancellazione totale del debito". Henry Northover, analista di Cafod, aggiunge: "Dobbiamo mettere fine a questo approccio di tipo tradizionale all'Africa. Il debito è solo una parte del problema. Bisogna ora aumentare gli aiuti fino a 50 miliardi di dollari all'anno". E in Italia. "Finalmente un piccolo gesto concreto. Quaranta miliardi di dollari, però, sono davvero un'inezia - commenta Sergio Marelli, presidente delle Ong italiane - La cancellazione totale del debito dei paesi più poveri è assolutamente alla portata dei governi del G8". Scettico anche Vittorio Agnoletto, europarlamentare indipendente del Prc, per il quale si tratta di un "importante passo in avanti", da sottoporre però a verifica, visto che in passato gli impegni sono stati spesso annunciati e non rispettati. "E' un passo importante, ma ancora insufficiente rispetto alle esigenze in gioco - dice Riccardo Moro, direttore della Fondazione "Giustizia e Solidarietà", promossa dalla Cei per proseguire la campagna giubilare per la cancellazione del debito. "Parlare di decisione storica o epocale, come hanno fatto i ministri del G8 - aggiunge - è francamente fuori luogo e rischia di rasentare il cattivo gusto". Intanto si muove anche il cantante Bob Geldof, organizzatore del "Live 8", il concertone intercontinentale in favore dei paesi poveri. In vista del G8 con in capi di Stato e di governo che si terrà il 6-7-8 luglio in Scozia, sta cercando di portare a Gleaneagle, sede dei lavori, un milione di persone per ottenere più aiuti per l'Africa.
8 giugno 2005	THE STANDARD High Military Spending to Raise Eyebrow June 8, 2005 Benson Kathuri The Government has raised military expenditure by Sh5.3 billion even though there is no war looming. The amount is far higher than the supplementary amount given to the crucial Health Ministry that is touted as the main pro-poor target. "We cannot talk of economic development when the people are dying," said Mwiraria when he launched the Budget estimates on Monday. He defended increases made to ministries of Health, Education and Water, but the huge increase in military expenditure now casts doubts on the Government's commitment to the fight poverty. Kenyans, especially the opposition MPs have frequently complained over the excessive military spending and even suggested that the military personnel be re-deployed to help in social programmes like road construction to give reason for such huge spending. The allocation to the defence department has now risen to Sh23.1 billion, up from Sh17.8 billion allotted last year. The new expenditure is likely to raise eyebrows among the international lenders who have been pushing Mwiraria to focus expenditure on pro-poor programmes. The estimates also failed to reveal how the money will be spent, hence denying the public the chance to track down the expenditure. According to the estimates, it showed that only Sh198.3 million will be spent on non-uniformed personnel and there is no indication how the remaining balance would be used. The International Monetary Fund team that is already in the country may raise questions over the expenditure.
8 giugno 2005	THE STANDARD Slums Get Sh500 Million June 8, 2005 The upgrading of urban slums is likely to speed up following the Government's decision to increase allocations to the programme. Budget estimates released ahead of budget reading today indicates that the Government will spend Sh500 million on the programme in the next fiscal year. Despite the increase, questions still linger as to the Government's commitment to its promise to construct 150,000 housing units annually. Construction of the target units was not only to be realised through the slum upgrading programme but also completion of stalled housing projects and the promotion of special purpose vehicles. Not much has came out of the programme in the form of special purpose vehicles nor has the Capital Markets Authority played any significant role in the current fiscal year. The objective of the slum upgrading and low-cost housing programme is to improve the living conditions of millions of urban poor in Nairobi and Mombasa. Under the programme, the Government was to develop slum upgrading and relocation plans including land adjudication and registration, expansion of water network and sanitation facilities, provision of electricity distribution points and up-grading of roads. The Government was also to enact a housing legislation to facilitate private sector expansion of low cost housing and financing. Besides, the state was to provide a conducive environment for private sector participation in construction of low cost housing in selected town under concessionary terms. Despite the significant shift in resource allocation for slum upgrading, it is not clear whether the Government is still keen on pursuing the promise it made on the provision of affordable housing for all Kenyans. When the Narc government came to power in December 2002, it promised to provide 150,000 housing units per year. It is estimated that the Government has only built 335 housing units since it took over power against an expected cumulative total of 300,000. Despite the conduct of a ground-breaking ceremony for 554 houses in Nairobi's Langata estate early this year no progress has been on site. By now, the Narc government should have built 300,000 houses, according to Kitutu Chache MP Jimmy Angwenyi. "So far only 335 housing units have been built. It is shocking," he told Parliament last month. He said Government had failed to provide the necessary incentives to prospective investors in the sub-sector. Angwenyi said a Kenyan based in the United States had expressed interest in building 60,000 houses but failed to get the necessary concessions from government. Another investor of Asian origin was ready to construct 30,000 houses in Mombasa and an Arab constructor had indicated his readiness to built 20,000 units in Nairobi but were discouraged by lack of incentives. Early last year, the Government denied that it had blocked the Dominion Group of companies from investing in low-cost housing in Nairobi. Treasury said the group was denied a tax break "because tax holidays were available only to firms operating in the Export Processing Zones." Finance minister David Mwiraria said there was no legal provision to extend tax holidays to businesses operating in the domestic market. In January this year, the Government snubbed attempts by its wholly-owned National Housing Corporation (NHC) to have it guarantee a Sh5 billion housing bond at the Nairobi Stock Exchange. Finance Permanent Secretary Joseph Kinyua said that the corporation's financial status was questionable and could not be guaranteed by the Government. The move was the final blwo to a deal that would have set pace for other organisations to go into the market to raise money for developing houses.
7 giugno 2005	THE STANDARD African States Unite in Debt Cancellation Calls June 7, 2005 Eliud Miring'uh Calls for the world's richest countries to cancel debts owed by African states dominated a regional meeting in Nairobi yesterday. Delegates vowed to lobby for the cancellation of the debts ahead of the G8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, next month. The about 50 delegates from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Eritrea had gathered at the African Medical and Research Foundation (Amref) headquarters to review a final report by the Commission for Africa (CFA). The report is on problems in Africa and proposed solutions. The CFA launched the report in March, and it has been the subject of debate in northern and southern Africa. The southern African countries held a summit in Cape Town last week, where they discussed the report's implications to the continent. The 17-member CFA, with nine representatives from Africa, was set up by British Prime Minister Tony Blair last year. It was mandated to study challenges facing Africa and recommend solutions. Blair, who will be the next President of the G8 and the European Union, hopes to table the commission's final report at the July Summit and use the recommendations to lobby for cancellation of debts. Opening yesterday's meeting, Planning minister Prof Anyang' Nyong'o commended the report for highlighting the eradication of poverty and corruption, and good governance, among other issues. He said the poverty issues were in line with principles of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad). "If the CFA recommendations are implemented, they will help realise Nepad's vision of a socio-economic transformation agenda for Africa," said the minister. Some of those present were outgoing British High Commissioner Sir Edward Clay, Amref director-general Michael Smalley and CFA commissioner, William Kalema. Nyong'o said the report had identified corruption as a main impediment to Africa's growth, and it should be tackled. He said for the continent to conquer corruption, it had to allow a free press and a dynamic civil society. Dr Smalley said over 5,000 people died everyday of Aids in Africa and 40 million children were out school due to poverty. "Corruption is a subject that has featured prominently as an impediment to Africa's progress (but) it is not unique to Africa. It is a battle that can be fought and won," said the Minister.
5 giugno 2005	THE STANDARD Aid for the Rich June 5, 2005 Alex Chamwada As poverty reduction efforts take centre stage, reports emerge that money meant for Third World countries does not reach intended beneficiaries British Prime Minister Tony Blair embarked on a marathon mission this week to convince western countries to increase aid to Africa. He is also set to take his campaign to America. But as Blair intensified his efforts, a research in Britain revealed that well-heeled consultants and companies in the West are the biggest beneficiaries of the global aid system. According to the research, less than 40 pence in every pound goes to poverty eradication efforts in the developing world. The Guardian of May 27, 2005, published the shocking findings of the research conducted by Action Aid. All indications are that the bulk of the money currently disbursed as aid is wasted, misdirected or recycled within rich countries. The report says that 61 per cent of aid flow is phantom rather than real, rising to almost 90 per cent in France and the United States. The revelation comes barely a month before the UK takes over the chair of the G8, which Blair sees as an ideal opportunity to increase aid for Africa. When he launched the Commission for Africa, Blair said the continent was "a scar on the conscience of the world". However, critics say rather than being a scar, the continent is actually a guinea pig for the West. Economic experts say it is the West that impoverished Africa through capitalism, colonialism and slavery and, infact, continues to do so. It is in Africa that economic, social, political, scientific and military experiments are carried out. Furthermore, the West has been accused of contributing to brain drain in Africa, the worst hit sector being health. The British Medical Association has accused the UK of crippling sub-Saharan Africa's healthcare system by poaching staff. This development has received generous coverage in the press with doctors proposing that the UK employs more home-grown doctors and limits the time that overseas recruits can train and work in the country. In 2003, 5,880 UK work permits were approved for health and medical personnel from South Africa, 2,825 from Zimbabwe, 1,510 from Nigeria and 850 from Ghana. Action Aid says that failure to target aid at the poorest countries, runaway spending on overpriced technical assistance from international consultants, tying aid to purchases from donor countries' own firms and huge administration costs all deflate the value of the assistance. The report further indicates that compared with the UN target to spend 0.7 per cent of rich countries' GDP on aid, the West, including Britain, were spending far less. But the British Department for International Development (DfID) has rejected the findings saying Action Aid's figures do not stack up. The UN has set millennium goals to eradicate global poverty by 2015. But critics say that with capitalism, Africa's match towards that goal will remain a pipe dream. Take Kenya, for example. A recent survey published by The Sunday Standard showed that the bulk of the country's wealth is in foreign hands, and that if Kenya were a cake to be shared out, its citizens would only lay claim to 31 per cent of the total piece. The rest would go to foreigners.
1 giugno 2005	THE DAILY NATION Why Growth Doesn't Always Reduce Poverty June 1, 2005 OPINION Janvier D. Nkurunziza * Nairobi Africa has the highest level of poverty in the world and is one of the two regions where poverty has not declined in the past 20 years. As the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa's forthcoming "Economic Report on Africa 2005" shows, the proportion of the poor - those living on less that a dollar a day - halved between 1980 and 2003 at the global level, from 40 per cent to 20 per cent. But in Africa, the share of the poor increased slightly, from 45 per cent to 46 per cent. Africa's poverty rate in 2003 exceeds that of the next poorest region, South Asia, by 17 percentage points. Recognising the link between economic growth and poverty reduction, those who crafted the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) estimated that halving poverty by 2015 in Africa requires countries to achieve an average minimum growth rate of 7 per cent annually. Whether or not African countries will reach this goal is an open question. Since the mid-1990s, African economies have been recording growth rates that are higher than world averages. According to the World Bank, the average growth rate for the period 1996-2002 in Africa was about 3.6 per cent, compared to the world average of 2.7 per cent. Growth in Africa in 2004 averaged 5.1 per cent, the fastest in eight years. Growth rates this year and in 2006 are projected at 4.7 per cent and 5.2 per cent, respectively. These average rates mask stark differences between countries. In 2004, for example, Chad's 39.4 per cent annual growth rate contrasted sharply with Zimbabwe's -6.8 per cent economic contraction. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that African economies, taken together, have recovered from the dark years of the 1980s. So the big question is why growth hasn't translated into poverty reduction. One reason is that Africa's recent growth rates, while high by international standards, remain too low to have a substantial impact on poverty. Initial conditions are so low that only high and sustained growth levels may have a noticeable impact on poverty reduction. In no year has Africa achieved the 7 per cent average growth rate required by the MDGs. Consider Ethiopia. With its per capita GDP of about $100, a growth rate of 7 per cent means that a typical Ethiopian will increase his income by $7 a year. But if this rate of growth were sustained over a period of just 10 years, per capita income would double, which underscores the need for sustained high growth rates. Very few countries in Africa have posted growth rates consistent with the MDGs threshold. In 2004, only six countries - Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Ethiopia, Angola and Mozambique - had annual growth rates higher than 7 per cent. And only four countries sustained a growth rate of 7 per cent or more over the past five years. Moreover, most of the observed growth was generated by capital rather than labour-intensive sectors. If the fruit of economic growth reaches the poor through employment creation, growth in capital-intensive sectors has a limited effect on poverty reduction. Indeed, recent growth in Africa appears to have been fuelled by increases in oil exports and high oil prices. Eight of the top 10 performers in 2004 are either oil-exporting countries or post-conflict economies, with the latter's high annual growth rates explained mostly by the proverbial "dead cat bounce" - the low base period over which growth is measured. Economic growth reduces poverty only if it benefits the poor, and the effect of growth on poverty reduction is a function of the pattern of income distribution. Africa as a continent has the world's second highest measure of income concentration. This suggests that the new wealth created over the last 10 years has mostly benefited the rich. To help reduce poverty, Africa must strive to increase its growth rates and sustain them over a long period. Moreover, there must be greater balance between capital-intensive and labour-intensive activities. But encouraging labour-intensive industries, which create jobs for the poor, must not be at the expense of capital-intensive industries. Finally, Africa's income distribution must become more equitable. This is difficult, given that a skewed income distribution is usually a legacy of a country's history. But it is not impossible, particularly for those African countries that succeed in modernising their political institutions. *Mr Nkurunziza works for the UN Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
1 giugno 2005	THE STANDARD Widening Poverty Gap Worries Government June 1, 2005 Benson Kathuri The Government has expressed concern over the widening gap between the poor and the rich despite the modest economic growth recorded in the past two years. Planning and National Development Minister Anyang' Nyong'o said less than three million people control half the country's national wealth. He said the poorest three million control less than two per cent of the wealth, making them "the poorest of the poor who cannot afford the basics of life." "At the national level, 56 per cent of Kenyans live below the poverty line, 10 per cent of the top rich take home 48 per cent of all incomes," Nyong'o said in a speech read by Permanent Secretary David Nalo. "The 10 per cent of the bottom poor take home only 1.8 per cent of the national income and clearly such disparities in access to national wealth cannot be sustained," he said. Nyong'o said the growing inequality was a major source of insecurity as thousands of youth remain unemployed to engage in crime. The state of affairs has defeated the basic principles of social justice and would remain a threat to the stability required for sustained national wealth creation. "We are witnessing the consequences of this inequality in form of increased crime, the high human toll taken by preventable diseases, particularly malaria, TB and HIV/Aids," Nyong'o told participants during the launch of the Kenya Community Development Foundation (KCDF) strategic plan 2005-2007. When he launched this year's Economic Survey, Nyong'o decried the rising poverty level and asked leaders to stop glorifying the vice. The grim picture casts doubt over whether Kenya would achieve any of the Millennium Development Goals agreed upon by Heads of State in New York, in 2000. The KCDF chairman, Dr Mohammed Abdallah, said the goals are achievable if communities are empowered to mobilise resources and transform their lives. KCDF has in the past five years given Sh120 million for community projects. He said the communities must be trained to shun dependence. "We know the communities have their own resources that can be harnessed for sustained development," he said. "The leaders should not take the excuse of reduced donor support to escape from realities that the communities had enough resources that only needed to be mobilized," he said.
24 maggio 2005	AFRICAN WOMAN AND CHILD FEATURE SERVICE (Nairobi) – [http://www.awcfs.org] Are Millennium Development Goals Feasible for Kenyans? May 24, 2005 Betty Oyugi "There are no causes of poverty, but only causes of wealth," Peter Bauer. The late English development economist Peter Bauer was a proponent of letting the market rather than government lead development. For forty years in the post world war II period his was a lone voice against foreign aid to the least developed countries, preferring instead to advocate the path of inflows of private capital. With only a few months left for the review of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) plus five scheduled to take place in September this year in New York where the world leaders will show their commitments in achieving the MDG gaols, Kenya is still far from the target. Already 56 percent of Kenya's population live below the poverty line and the figure is projected to increase to 65.9 percent by 2015. In the rural areas, poor people live on US$ 17 per month whereas the figure is US$ 36 per month in urban areas. This translates to Ksh. 1296 and Ksh. 2808 a month respectively. The Kenyan Government has been working towards the attainment of MDGs by reviewing the whole budgetary process to ensure the allocation of funds strictly to priority areas. It is also strengthening and entrenching the public expenditure review to help the government cut down on wasteful expenditure and ensure proper monitoring and accountability of public funds. The Kenyan Government has made efforts to enhance the welfare of the poor, through policies such as Economic Recovery Strategy (ERS) for Wealth and Employment Creation 2003-2007, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), the National Development Plan 2001-2007 and the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF). A process which also included key Kenyan stakeholders. Finance Minister David Mwiraria says that at least Ksh. 120 billion is needed to implement the ERS and that the government is sourcing for funders to help them raise this money. Kenya's immediate post independence economic development blueprint was the Sessional Paper No.10 of 1965, which outlined the government's commitment to eradicate three vices of hunger, illiteracy and disease. More recently, the Government launched the ERS Strategy for Wealth and Employment Creation for 2003-2007. With an economic growth record, that is far much below seven percent, that is required to achieve MDGs, Kenya may be far from achieving her targets by 2015. Poor countries like Kenya need to improve on, accountability and transparency to achieve the goals they committed to themselves. The stumbling block for Kenya currently is corruption; a major blow that the government is now experiencing is the resignation of Ethics and Governance Permanent Secretary (PS) John Githongo who was an engine towards zero tolerance on corruption. Factors that sustain poverty are thought to be, inefficient use and allocation of resources, corruption, bad governance, poor health and malnutrition. In a country where half of the population are women with most of them illiterate, the achievement of these goals by 2015 is bleak. Dr. Richard Muga, Director National Council for Population and Development (NCPD) says that the entry point to the attainment of MDGs is the improvement of illiteracy to Kenyans. Another priority that he says needs to be considered is the National Social Health Insurance Fund (NSHIF) the government needs to increase expenditure per capita on health. On the road to getting into governing Kenya, the NARC's manifesto had it spelt out that there will be affordable and preventive healthcare. If this is not put into consideration, the attainment of MDG 4, which is on Child Mortality, shall be one of the dreams that is not realised. If Gender equity and Equality is not put into consideration the achievement of MDGs will be another mountain that needs to be climbed. Nyaradzai Gumbomzvanda, Regional Director UNIFEM says that gender mainstreaming should be at the center stage towards the attainment of MDGs as issues of Gender equality are equal to economics. "This shall be a direct linkage towards achieving MDGs and adds that the new Kenyan Constitution would be a handy tool, if implemented," she points out. Minister of Gender, Sports and Social Services Ochillo Ayacko agrees with her, but is quick to add that internatonal conventions do not target Gender equity well. The Kenyan poor should be involved in the MDG's process so that they views can be included to see if the MDG's target can be achieved. Interestingly, most of them, do not know what MDGs are, they cannot read or write which makes it hard for them to read newspapers. Most of them are women who don't own radios, which cover vast areas as a mode of communication. The problem however is not resources, but there are artificial reasons as to why these goals may not be easy to achieve. These are insecurity, property rights, licensing of businesses and culture. James Shikwati, Director Inter Region Network (IREN) says that; Africa has a lot of resources and wealth but poses a question if people's minds are at work to realise what they have. According to him, the country has got potential to make these goals attainable even without relying on foreign donors. "The Kenyan transport infrastructure needs to be improved to cover what we are loosing with poor road networks," says Shikwati. But poor infrastructure is also another problem Kenya is facing. For example in Nairobi, where because of poor transportation, the country looses Ksh. 18 billion per annum, according to reports from the Kenya Ministry of Roads and Works. And this does not take into account extra time people spend on travelling. Therefore for Kenya to make the life of many people who live in poverty, apart from attempting to achieve the MDG's goals, there are still some national problems which are linked to good governance which it has to achieve first. If Kenya can achieve the MDG's goals as expected, they join the world as in improving the livelihoods of many and ast Jeffrey Sachs, the Director of the MDGs Advisory team estimates that if the goals are to be met globally; 500 million people will escape poverty by 2015, 250 million are to be spared from hunger and 30 million children will live past their fifth birthday.
19 maggio 2005	CISANEWS [www.cisanews.org] KENYA: Catholic Church Calls for Cancellation of Foreign Debt Publication Date: May 17, 2005 NAIROBI, Kenya, May 17, 2005 (CISA) -The Catholic Church has added its voice to a growing call to international creditors to write off Kenyas -and Africas- crippling debt. We expect the governments of creditor countries to implement the total cancellation of the debt owed by Kenya, to relax restrictive monetary policies and encourage imports from the developing world, Kenyas 28 bishops said in a Pastoral Letter read in Nairobi on Tuesday, May 17, 2005. The launch of the Pastoral Letter, On the Burden of International Debt,. fell within a new weeklong campaign (May 15-22, 2005) spearheaded by the Kenyan Debt Relief Network (KENDREN) and the Catholic Economic Justice Africa. Despite receiving US$ 17 billion in loans and aid, Kenyas economy continued to decline, the bishops said. In as far as debt servicing reduces people to poverty while its creditors determine Kenyas political, economic and social destiny, debt is essentially a human rights issue,they said and blasted corruption on the part of our government officials. . . We cannot denounce the evil of foreign debt without accepting our responsibility for the growth of poverty among us.
10 maggio 2005	IRIN [www.irinnews.org] Getting on board ActionAid's anti-poverty campaign 5 May 2005 NAIROBI, 5 May 2005 (IRIN) - Weakened by age, 90-year-old Mary Wanjiku Munene sat in her one-room house in the sprawling Kibera slum in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi - a room she shares with her seven grandchildren who were orphaned by AIDS. "Our home is falling apart," she said. "This child [pointing to her great grand daughter] is handicapped. At the special school they say we have to pay for her to be admitted. Sometimes we have no food and we just drink water and go to bed. Please help a poor woman like me," she added. Munene was speaking to a group of reporters and representatives of the UK charity, ActionAid, on Wednesday. The charity has launched a campaign to gather the voices and views of Africa's poor. The views are expected to be presented to the leaders of the group of seven western industrialised countries and Russia during the 6-7 July Group of Eight (G8) summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. ActionAid's social campaigners hope to lobby the leaders to support fairer terms of trade for developing nations, debt cancellation, increased aid, support for better health care projects, including providing treatment for those in poor societies infected with HIV/AIDS, better education opportunities for the poor and the improvement of agriculture. "We have enough problems," Munene said. "Let those who have the ability help us." HELP US - SLUM DWELLERS The chairman of a community-based organisation in Kibera, Onesmus Nyamai, emphasised that the slum dwellers were not irredeemable, and were able to initiate projects to improve their lives, but had limited capacity due to their extreme poverty. "We have initiated water projects, built pit latrines and started a nursery school that is benefiting 400 children, mainly orphans," Nyamai said. "Why can't those [countries] owed money by our governments reduce or cancel the debts so that our governments can have more money to support us," he added. "These issues should be discussed at the international level. This is not politics, we are only asking for some help." Josephine Kamene, a single mother of six who uses clay and plastic beads to make jewellery, said she dreamed of being able to access micro-credit services to expand her business and hoped that one day, she might be able to export her wares. "My message to the G8 leaders is that I just want a little help," Kamene said. "I have a trade and I am ready to train others, but the cost of capital is high. Right now all I can afford is food and even that is a problem sometimes." Kamene’s small hut also accommodates her sister, Priscilla Kathina, who travelled from her rural home in the southern District of Kitui to seek treatment in Nairobi when she contracted tuberculosis. "I hope one day I will be able to take my children out of the slums where they are exposed to the danger of frequent fires, thuggery and prostitution. I would really like to improve my life," Kamene said. GET ON BOARD – ACTIONAID ActionAid is using a bus as the symbol of its campaign, and intends to use this roving representative to mobilise developing countries to challenge the G8 leaders to support, rather than undermine, the efforts by Africa's poor to overcome poverty, injustice and social exclusion. The crusade has been dubbed the "Get On Board” campaign. "The bus is a symbol of the most excluded people in Africa and it is carrying what the poor are saying to the G8 countries," Asenath Omwega, ActionAid's regional director for Africa, told reporters in Kiberia. The bus left South Africa on 1 April on an epic voyage to Scotland, traversing Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania. The bus will travel to Uganda after touring western Kenya. On 15 May, it will be driven to the Kenyan port of Mombasa, from where it will be shipped to Marseille, France, for the onward journey to Britain via Italy, and finally to Gleneagles on 6 July, the G8 summit’s opening day. "During its journey in parts of Africa the [bus] team has met with unbelievable stories - of tragedy, as well as passion and real hope," ActionAid said. "The bus carries some of their powerful messages to the world's as well as their own political leaders." © IRIN
2 maggio 2005	THE DAILY NATION Rich urged to cancel Africa's Sh300bn debt Story by LUCAS BARASA 05/02/2005 ActionAid official Lise Melvin who is among the people on the "Get on Board" bus collecting debt and poverty views from the public in Africa (centre), share a joke with Kenya's Ms Rose Mandeya as the latter tries her hand at steering the vehicle when it entered Kenya at Namanga from southern Africa yesterday. The rich nations were yesterday asked to cancel Africa's Sh300 billion debt and help to reduce poverty on the continent. A team on a bus ride around Africa to collect views to be forwarded to a meeting of the world's most powerful leaders in Scotland on June 6 also called for more aid for the continent. The group also called for a reduction of the trade imbalance between the poor South and the rich North and the lowering of the cost of Aids treatment. They called for good governance in Africa for better use of resources. The bus dubbed "Get on Board" started its journey in South Africa and entered Kenya through Namanga yesterday. It was received by Kenya Poverty Eradication Commission chairman Gilbert Oluoch, ActionAid country director Joyce Umbima and Tanzania's East Africa Legislative Assembly members Adan Abdullahi and George Nangale. The poor are to give views on trade, aid, debt and Aids, which will be presented at the meeting of G8 (group of eight most industrialised nations) leaders. "It is the first time to collect views from the poor and the down-trodden for such a meeting," Mr Abdullahi said. "It is important to publicise the problems people in Africa are facing," he added. "It is a noble idea and I appeal to the G8 to look at the views raised collectively."Mr Nangale said it was Africa's "moral obligation and right" to get aid from the developed countries. ActionAid official Njeri Mwangi, who is coordinating the bus trip, said it was part of the Global Action Against Poverty's policy to involve communities at the grassroots. Africa's debt stands at Sh300 billion and should be cancelled and resources channelled to education, health and other infrastructure, she added. Mr Oluoch said 56 per cent of Kenyans live the below the poverty line of about Sh76 a day. The figure increased from 3.7 million people in 1972 to 11 million in 2001. It is now 18 million. Maasai elder Mengati ole Kisarmoi said Africa's future would be bleak if Aids was not contained. Another ActionAid official, Ms Rebecca Wabwoba, announced that President Kibaki was expected to launch a global campaign against Aids at Kenyatta International Conference Centre, Nairobi, tomorrow. Before the launch set for 10.30 am, the bus's team will be in Parliament to petition it on access to Hiv/Aids treatment. The bus is expected at Kibera slums on Wednesday before proceeding to Nakuru, Eldoret, Budalangi and Busia.
18 aprile 2005	THE DAILY NATION IMF's poverty plans 'making it unpopular' Publication Date: 4/18/2005 Story by KEVIN J KELLEY in New York Africans hold an increasingly negative view of the International Monetary Fund, its ministers have declared. The ministers, among them Finance minister David Mwiraria, charged at the fund’s spring meeting in Washington at the weekend, that this was due to IMF's failure to reduce poverty. The ineffectiveness of the IMF’s poverty-reduction and debt-relief programmes made it difficult to implement economic reforms because "they are perceived as policies imposed by the IMF", the African governors declared. The IMF also continued to impose "politically sensitive" conditions on its loans to Africa, "which makes it difficult to keep the programmes on track", the governors added. They urged the fund to "promote outreach and dialogue with the broader African population", and called for increased African representation at the upper levels of the IMF staff and in its decision-making organs. Africa currently accounts for 43 of the IMF’s 184 governors – one for each of the fund’s member countries. But Africa holds only 4.4 per cent of the voting rights within the IMF, which are allotted in accordance with the amount of money countries contribute to the fund. The US has the greatest single say, with 17 per cent of voting rights, followed by Japan with 6.1 per cent and Germany with 6 per cent. Efforts to meet the 2015 deadline for achieving the UN’s Millennium Development Goals have been "unsatisfactory", the African governors said. They further criticised rich countries for refusing to reform their "trade-distorting policies" and for giving insufficient attention to Africa’s needs concerning agriculture, energy and infrastructure. The governors’ critique coincided with the rich countries’ failure, once again, to devise a debt-cancellation initiative for Africa. Finance ministers of the Group of Seven (G-7) rich countries attending the IMF meetings were unable to agree on how to pay for such a move. But Britain’s Gordon Brown, who has been campaigning for major increases in aid to Africa, predicted on Saturday that a debt-lifting deal would be reached by the time of the G-7 July summit in Scotland. A more positive picture of Africa’s prospects is presented in an IMF report released in the run-up to the meetings. It notes that 20 sub-Saharan nations have achieved annual economic growth rates of more than five per cent. Kenya’s growth this year is projected at 3.5 per cent. But African clothing exporters could soon lose thousands of jobs due to the lifting of trade quotas that had restricted sales by China, the report warns, adding that "the pressure on employment could be severe".
13 aprile 2005	THE STANDARD What Kenya must do to receive aid Wednesday April 13, 2005 By Tom Mogusu The Government yesterday agreed to a long list of conditions it must meet in the next one year before it can get more money from donors. Most of the funds for development projects will remain intact, though no significant new pledges were made. "We discussed important policy reforms and agenda for Kenya and which should be implemented as a way of enabling Kenya access the funds that had been pledged," said Mr Makhtar Diop, the World Bank’s Country Director for Kenya, Eritrea and Somalia, at the end of the two-day consultative meeting. Diop described the meeting as a success. "This was a truly consultative meeting. It is not one which people came from abroad to tell this government what to do," he said. After two days of consultations in a high-powered meeting between Kenya its donors, the government acceded to demands first broached by the private sector and civil society that it first demonstrates serious commitment to fight corruption. Though discussions during the second day were generally described as positive, allegations of increased corruption and what the donors termed as the Government’s slow pace in fighting the vice overshadowed a bigger economic and development debate. The meeting was closed to the media, but there was a press briefing after 7pm. Sources say that the Government agreed to fast track the implementation of a five-point strategy that should pave the way for the promised budgetary support. This includes: Enactment of legislation to establish a legislative platform on which to anchor the war on corruption. Vigorous enforcement of anti-corruption laws through investigation of corruption offences and economic crimes, as well as recovery of corruptly acquired property. Identification and sealing of loopholes through institution of effective public sector management controls. National public education aimed at stigmatising corruption and inducing behavioral change. Implementing macroeconomic and structural reforms to reduce the incidence and demand for corruption by scaling down the role of the public sector and bureaucracy. The strategy was not part of the original agenda of the meeting. Finance minister David Mwiraria confirmed that the action plan had been agreed upon and said the Government would also review existing provisions governing the conduct of public servants to ensure that they support the effective implementation of the action plan. Such a review, said Mwiraria, would address issues such as conflict of interest, adherence to relevant Code of Ethics and efficiency, accountability and transparency in the conduct of public affairs. The donors are also asking the Government "to engage in regular dialogue with Parliament, civil society, the private sector and the international community." "While the Executive arm is fully committed to fighting corruption, support of the other two branches together with the general public is crucial," said Mwiraria. One of the major undertakings by the Government is that it will expand the jurisdiction of Special Magistrates’ Courts to enable them to deal with corruption and economic crimes cases. It will also empower the High Court to appoint receivers for property suspected to have been obtained through corruption. The Kenya anti-corruption commission will also be empowered to take over corruption-related cases that have already been commenced by the police. Mwiraria also called on donor governments to prosecute foreign companies colluding with Kenyans in corrupt deals. "If perpetrators of corruption know that they cannot run and hide abroad, they will think twice about engaging in acts of corruption," he said. Diop said that other than the strategy on anti-corruption, the discussions dealt on efforts to improve accountability, ownership of development and economic growth and democracy. "We discussed governance because there is an increasing concern by Kenyans themselves on how the government was addressing these issues. We spent three hours discussing governance and agreed to set-up an action plan that will be monitored and evaluated from time to time," he said. Even though the consultative meeting did not dwell on releasing additional funds to Kenya, Diop said the Government’s ability and speed in implementing the growth agenda was also on the discussion table.
13 aprile 2005	THE STANDARD UN: Kenya falling behind in Millennium Goals Wednesday April 13, 2005 By Benson Kathuri About 15 million Kenyans live in abject poverty, United Nations agencies in Nairobi said yesterday. They said Kenya was likely to miss seven out of the eight desired Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In a joint statement read by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative, Mr Paul De la Porte, the agencies said poverty levels were worsening. Porte said leading indicators showed the country had also lost track of other goals. "The 2003 MDG progress report and the recently concluded needs assessment for Kenya show that with the exception of primary education and HIV/Aids, the country is not likely to meet all the other MDG targets," he said. The agencies expressed concern over the widening gap between the rich and the poor. The inequality, they said, was a big blow to poverty alleviation. They say absolute poverty remains high as the number of the poor had increased from 12.5 million in 1997 to 15 million. "There are only very limited prospects of achieving the MDGs at the current pace of economic growth, and important investments in key sectors of the economy such as agriculture and health," they said. Porte said the gross inequality had worsened poverty, insecurity, crime, social unrest and undermined the overall economic growth and development of the country. The crime rate in Kenya rose by 51 per cent between 1994 and 2000. He urged the Government to develop resources at the community level. "This, however, calls for the promotion of good governance, the rule of law, and the protection and promotion of human rights. It is discouraging that hunger continues to rise and the country is unlikely to achieve MDGs if this trend continues," he said. The donors were also concerned that the delayed constitutional review was hindering economic development. The UN agencies said a new constitution would address the fundamental development question of service delivery comprehensively and with finality. Health Minister Charity Ngilu, who presented the health report, said almost all leading health indicators were on the decline. Life expectancy; infant and child mortality had worsened, with life expectancy at birth for women going down to 48 years compared to 47 for men.
11 aprile 2005	THE DAILY NATION Cancel Africa's Huge Debts, Social Workers Tell Donors April 12, 2005 Richard Chesos Donors have been told to cancel African countries' debts. Hundreds of social workers from all over the world, who are gathered in Nairobi for a five-day conference, yesterday said the fight against poverty in the continent could only be won if debts were waived. The theme of the sixth Pan African meeting at Kenyatta International Conference Centre is Professional Social Work and its Contribution to Africa's Development. Delegates from 28 countries are attending the meeting. The more than 300 participants were drawn from NGOs, government departments, church organisations, local authorities, health and social work training institutions, among others. The president of the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW), Ms Imelda Dodds, said Africa was becoming poorer while paying huge debts. She urged the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to extend its planned debt relief to Zambia to other countries. Ms Dodds said her organisation would continue campaigning for debt relief to Third World countries, particularly this week to mark the Global Week of Action on Debt Relief. The social workers' campaign coincided with a crucial meeting between the Government and donors at the School of Monetary Studies at Ruaraka, Nairobi. The KICC meeting was opened by Gender, Sports, Culture and Social Services deputy permanent secretary Moses Gitari on behalf of minister Ochilo Ayacko. IFSW Africa region's vice-president Charles Mbugua said social workers had a critical role to preach peace in the continent's volatile countries. Mr Ayacko said Africa was facing many social problems and such conferences could provide a forum for sharing experiences with a view to solving them. "The role of social workers is not only significant but also challenging and complex due to the fluid socio-economic environment and increasing poverty levels, which have been worsened by the devastating impact of HIV/Aids pandemic, especially here in the African region," he said. The minister asked the participants to use the forum to draw out ethical parameters of social work practice.
11 aprile 2005	THE DAILY NATION Forgive our debts or we shall remain poor Publication Date: 4/6/2005 Mr Sisule * The man slated to become World Bank President, Dr Paul Wolfowitz, has started on a politically correct note. It is fashionable for anybody looking to sound good on the international stage to invoke a dedication to ending poverty, especially in Africa. But one would be forgiven for wondering why the Bank, and its twin, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), have failed to achieve this feat in the 60 years of their existence. The Bank and the IMF boast vast financial and human resources, yet they have presided over growing poverty in Africa and widening inequality in South America and Asia. Where progress has been made in poor countries, it has been because of ignoring or moderating the prescriptions imposed by these two institutions. For instance the credit for the resurgent growth in Asia, South America, Egypt and South Africa is largely credited to prudent actions on the part of governments, contrary, in fact, to what the Bank and the Fund may have wished. It would seem any country that strictly follows the advice of the two multilateral organisations blindly, is doomed to heavier debts and poverty as many African countries have belatedly learnt. The fact remain that the institutions pursue structural changes to economies without giving due regard to the effects of such changes on social progress and political stability. Their prescriptions are sworn on the bible of macro-economic fundamentals with little attention being to the micro-economic realities. Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world to have grown poorer in the last decade. The area has the lowest life expectancy, the highest child mortality and the worst adult literacy. Healthcare and infrastructural facilities are either non-existent or decrepit. Whereas poor governance could be a contributory factor to the morass, it is not the main reason for Africa's poverty. Clearly, a majority of African countries have improved their governance over the last two decades. Between 1990 and 2005, at least 35 of the 55 African nations have become functional democracies with free and fair elections. Only 11 are under dictatorship or are engaged in war. Yet poverty has been rising as Africa democratises. It is obvious that the cause of poverty in Africa is poor access to international markets and the heavy debt burden. Good governance will only work if it is matched by a fair deal in international trade and the cancellation of debts. Net official aid had declined from $16,552 million in 1996 to $13,933 in 2001. As a result, debt service as a percentage of export of goods and services had declined from 20.4 per cent in 1996 to 10.6 per cent in 2002. Since most of the rich countries are stingy with aid anyway, it is a good thing that Africa is learning to live without it. The wealthy nations are flagrantly hypocritical in handling the debt problem. The Bush administration took just a few days to help cancel the $120 billion owed by Iraq because the country is an important source of oil for America. Yet successive US administrations have opposed total debt forgiveness for other poor countries deemed to be of less strategic importance. The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative run by the IMF had only cancelled $31 billion by the end of 2004 out of the $110 billion agreed in 1996. This is a misguided policy since debt is a threat to world peace as it creates fertile ground for conflict and terrorism. A strategy is needed to end the African debt problem. The most substantial part of debt is the "political" bit owed to foreign governments and multilateral organisations, dealt with under the Paris Club, IMF and World Bank negotiations. The other proportion of the debt stock is the "commercial debt" owed to banks and bondholders dealt with under the London Club. The first part of the strategy should be a publicity campaign within industrialised countries and in multilateral organisations to sensitise people on the damage the debt burden has done on poor economies. They should be told that poor countries cannot afford to pay back these debts, now or in the future. Not when children are dying from hunger, sicknesses are ravaging the masses, and poverty is getting worse. * Mr Sisule is a consultant with AfricaIntel.com
11 aprile 2005	THE STANDARD Extend debt relief, urges President Tuesday April 5, 2005 By Waweru Mugo President Kibaki yesterday urged developed countries to extend debt relief to accelerate delivery of water, sanitation and housing to the rest of the world. President Kibaki also urged the donor community as well as countries with financial ability to contribute to a global initiative that seeks upgrading of slums. Addressing a UN-Habitat meeting in Nairobi yesterday, he said ongoing slum upgrading would be humane with minimal displacement. "Upgrading of slums has been given high priority and will be undertaken with minimal displacement of slum dwellers to cater for proper planning and provision of infrastructure," Kibaki told the 20th Session of the Governing Council of UN-Habitat at Gigiri. Habitat Executive Director Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka urged the world to act fast to check the rapid growth of slums that she described as epitomes of "dehumanising squalour". About 1,000 delegates, including ministers, government representatives, mayors, local authority officials, UN officials, NGO representatives and community groups are attending the four-day meeting. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Prof Wangari Maathai attributed increasing rural-to-urban migration to environmental degradation. "Their land has become degraded and too fragile to sustain livelihoods. They are environmental refugees," said Prof Maathai. Told the gathering that included Unep boss Klaus Toepfer and Kenyan ministers Amos Kimunya (Lands and Housing), Chirau Ali Mwakwere (Foreign Affairs) and Musikari Kombo (Local Government). "Slums and squatters promote further degradation of the land through removal of trees, vegetation, pollution and inadequate waste management," said Maathai.
10 aprile 2005	THE STANDARD Campaign for debt relief, Maathai tells Africa Thursday March 31, 2005 African countries should talk less and campaign more for debt relief to combat poverty, Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai said yesterday. She said poor countries should put more emphasis on fair trade and avoid further destruction of the environment. "If countries in Africa are forced to pay, we will have to cut the trees, scrape the land, overgraze the pasture," Maathai said. Prof Maathai was speaking in Japan at the opening of the Forum of Expo 2005 Aichi, which was attended by Gro Harlem Brundtland, a former Norwegian prime minister, and Kazumoto Yamamoto of the Japan-based Asahi Kasei Corporation. The Expo, whose theme is Nature’s Wisdom, will run through September. Maathai said poor countries were not asking for favours from the rich, but space. "I have found it very difficult to see how people can be committed to ending poverty but not to debt reduction. Sometimes we ask poor governments to do the impossible," she said. Until policies on debt and trade change, Maathai said, efforts to realise the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals will be in vain. Maathai, who is also an Assistant Environment Minister, urged the world to adopt "mottainai", a Japanese term for reducing, reusing and recycling resources. She introduced a fourth "R" for "restoration of the environment". "Nature is very unforgiving and if we destroy her, we will suffer. As an individual, you can practice the spirit of ‘mottainai’," she said.
30 marzo 2005	THE DAILY NATION US bows out of Blair aid plan for Africa Publication Date: 3/25/2005 Story by WASHINGTON AKUMU in Paris The US will not adopt a British formula for increasing aid to Africa. The strategy is part of Prime minister Tony Blair's recently-launched economic blueprint for the continent. The US Treasury Undersecretary for International Affairs, John Taylor, said yesterday that while the US supported in principle Britain's Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Report, it could not commit itself to long-term financing it. He says: "The ECA Report has some good material on ways to reduce poverty. We support its goals and agree with its emphasis on measurability. "The proposed International Finance Facility works for Britain and other countries, and that is fine. But for us, and others like Canada and Japan, our laws are such that the legislature cannot commit the nation's funds many years into the future." Mr Taylor was briefing the Press at the US Embassy here on Wednesday, on the Financial Facility, a central cog in the British plan. He spoke ahead of a two-day observation of meetings of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development states. Under its plan for Africa's economic resuscitation, the British government has been lobbying rich countries to double their aid flows to Africa from the current $55 billion to $100 billion through a programme that requires the donor states to make long-term commitments. A country like Kenya could then use the same amount as security to enable it to borrow from the capital market. According to media reports, Italy, France and Germany support the financing facility, which is being aggressively marketed by British chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown. But Mr Taylor said that, while US citizens had shown that they were "generous" in helping the world's poor, they wanted first to be shown evidence that their money is making a difference. He also dismissed a French plan to target certain taxes for aid. In what would seem to be open season for economic prescriptions for Africa, French President Jacques Chirac proposes that new aid be paid for by levying taxes on arms sales or transactions that abet pollution.
21 marzo 2005	CATHOLIC INFORMATION SERVICE FOR AFRICA (CISA) KENYA: African Union Should Push for Debt Cancellation Issue No. 409, Tuesday, March 15, 2005 NAIROBI, Kenya, March 11, 2005 (CISA) -The African Union (AU), being the pan-African intergovernmental body that can assess the laws governing debt and the statutory and other obligations of lenders, should play a crucial role in ensuring that debt is cancelled in the African continent. This is one of the key points that came up at a forum hosted by Kenya Debt Relief Network (KENDREN) in Nairobi on Thursday, March 10, 2005. Opa Kajimpanga, chairman African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD), said that failure of development in any country should be attributed to those delegated in authority. AFRODAD is a research, lobby and advocacy regional organisation seeking to secure positive policy changes to redress Africa's debt and development crisis in order to achieve equitable and sustainable development. "We as people have the right to interrogate the state whenever our rights are violated," Opa said. For debt cancellation, Opa declared that different states should interact in an equal status and help the weaker one among them. "The African countries should only pay between 5 to 10 per cent of the debt burden that has accrued over the years," Opa told CISA after the function. A local co-ordinator for Millennium Development Goals (MDG's), Wahu Kaara, urged participants to act on the millennium goals instead of letting leaders fight poverty alone. "Let's make poverty history because there are no excuses any more," said she. While emphasising on the goals that included a global partnership for development, Kaara said that leaders only provide the blue print, while citizens are charged with ensuring that the goals are not only articulated but also become a reality.
19 marzo 2005	THE DAILY NATION Rights body to help Kenya's debt relief bid Publication Date: 3/19/2005 Story by MUGO NJERU A campaign has been launched to help relieve Kenya of its foreign debt burden of more than Sh700 billion. So grave is the situation, says a Nairobi human rights organisation whose initiative it is, that each child born today inherits a Sh44,269 debt. The Chambers of Justice wants Kenyans, in particular, and Africans in general, to take their debt relief call to the G8, the grouping of the world's industrialist nations, at its annual meeting in the Scottish tourist engrave of Gleneagles in July. It is at the summit that the African recovery plan spearheaded by Britain – A G8 member – will be adopted or rejected. Dubbed Africa's Marshall Plan, the initiative proposes an injection of $25 billion (Sh2 trillion) a year in aid to black Africa in the next three to five years and $50 billion (Sh4 trillion) annually thereafter. It also proposes a cancellation of 100 per cent of the debts owed by the world's poorest countries and the lifting of trade barriers constricting Africa's share of the international trade. The plan calls for the removal of barriers to black Africa's exports and demands an immediate end to the rich nations' subsidies on cotton and sugar by 2010. It also wants improved performance by African rulers and calls on the rich to rein in bribe givers from their countries. Mr Ababu Namwamba, Chamber of Justice's chief counsel, said during the launch yesterday that the campaign aimed at collecting 1 million signatures from those who support Kenya's call for debt relief. It also aimed at increased and better targeted official development aid as well as fiscal discipline in the government. Mr Namwamba said a memorandum based on public hearings to be held in all the eight provinces would be adopted by May for onwards presentation to the summit. Members of Parliament, he said, would be sensitised to push the government to make Kenya's presence felt at then summit. Although he did not disclose the venue, Mr Namwamwa said a retreat had already been scheduled for the MPs to specifically lobby for this.
14 marzo 2005	THE STANDARD Pessimism greets UK’s rescue plan for Africa Friday March 114, 2005 By Matthew Green* "We’ve heard it all before" was the response from many Africans to Britain’s new rescue plan for the continent, revealing doubts over whether well-meaning words will translate into action. Britain unveiled a dossier challenging the rich world to end "appalling" market protectionism and give an extra $25 billion a year, echoing calls for more trade and aid that Africans have been writing up in action plans for years. "This whole effort is a slap in the face of Africa," said Pete Ondeng’, head of a private body mobilising resources for a home-grown African economic plan, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad), launched in 2001. "What is coming out of the report is not surprising because there is nothing that you can tell me that hasn’t been thought through before in terms of the problems," he told Reuters in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. While Africans generally support the calls by the London-sponsored Africa Commission for the rich world to rewrite global trade rules to help millions of impoverished farmers sell their produce abroad, the real test will be whether the European Union and G8 group of rich nations adopt the plan. "Its implementation will depend more on how much they are willing to fulfill their promises," said Manenga Ndulo, an economics professor at the University of Zambia. "Previously we have had so many plans which have not been fulfilled." Government officials in Kenya, a long-standing ally of Britain, gave a cautious welcome to the document although even they acknowledged the level of scepticism. "Let us not be too pessimistic about what the commission is likely to achieve," said Planning minister Peter Anyang Nyongo. South African President Thabo Mbeki said he had not had a chance to read the 464-page report, which some Africans say British Prime Minister Tony Blair backed mainly to boost his standing after Iraq tarnished his image. "I do hope that it will indeed serve the purpose for which it was intended," Mbeki told reporters, saying it should lead to progress in Nepad and an existing G8 Africa Action Plan. Calls for greater aid are common refrains among African leaders, but some analysts said even more than the proposed $25 billion a year would be needed to make serious progress on basics like health, water, education and roads. "This will definitely augment our efforts but much more aid needs to flow to Africa if we are to catch up with development," said Erastus Mwencha, head of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) trade bloc. He said $15 billion a year was needed for infrastructure alone. The commission also called for 100 percent debt write-offs for the poorest nations, an arms treaty to regulate weapons flows into Africa, punishment for Western businesses that pay bribes, and repatriation of stolen funds. "That the commissioners are well-intentioned men and women is beyond doubt," wrote Ugandan commentator Andrew Mwenda, one of 16 African journalists invited to London for briefings on the Africa Commission. "But it is an effort most likely to produce very little." In Madagascar, a giant Indian Ocean island off the southeastern coast of Africa, reaction was similarly tepid. "This is nothing new," said Airy Ramiarison, senior economics lecturer at the University of Antananarivo in Madagascar’s capital, referring to debt relief plans. "Maybe instead of suggesting a new initiative, the rich countries could just stick to the promises they have already made," he said. *(With Shapi Shacinda in Lusaka, Gershwin Wanneburg in Pretoria, Gordon Bell in Cape Town, David Mageria in Nairobi and Tim Cocks in Antananarivo).
14 marzo 2005	THE STANDARD World Bank to support Blair’s Africa plan with cash Monday March 14, 2005 By Tom Mogusu The World Bank will increase its budget for Africa over the next one decade in order to boost the British government’s efforts to address poverty on the continent, it has been announced. Mr James Wolfensohn, the bank’s President, said the bank would increase its allocations for African projects as proposed by the Africa Commission report that was launched last Friday. "The World Bank Group strongly endorses the Commission for Africa Report and we hope that the global community will work to advance its principal recommendations," he said in a statement posted on the bank’s website. "The Bank group stands ready to scale up its assistance to Africa and to work with countries to help themselves in attacking obstacles to greater growth and poverty reduction," Wolfensohn said. His pledge is based on the Commission for Africa report, which calls for the doubling of aid to sub-Saharan Africa, including investment of $150 billion in infrastructure over the next one decade. It also calls for investment in assets such as rural roads, safe water, ports, transport networks and power generation. The report says investments by donors in these sectors would trigger growth and job creation- a fact that would help Africa make progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The Commission for Africa is an initiative if the British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose aim is to rescue African from acute poverty and economic decline. The commission was set-up last year by to take a fresh look at how the international community can support Africa’s development. It will also try to galvanise Europe to focus more on Africa, which is ranked as least developed thanks to rampant poverty, economic stagnation and huge debts that stand at $350 billion (Sh28 trillion). By the end of 1998, debt repayments amounted to $30 billion (Sh2.4 trillion) or 25 per cent of the continent’s exports. Kenya’s accumulated debt is $45 billion (Sh3.6 trillion). The Africa commission report also comes at a time when Africa’s debt burden has risen 24-fold over the last 34 years. The proportion of those living in abject poverty in the continent has also shot-up from 100 million to 304 million over the same period. Such statistics were included in the Commission’s report, triggering the World Bank to suggest that it was willing to lend a hand in addressing issues surrounding poverty and the need to meet the MDGs goals. "We share the hope expressed in the report that the unacceptable trends of impoverishment and marginalisation in the world’s poorest region can be reversed," Wolfensohn said. He, however, urged African countries to play their role in the fight against poverty by rolling out domesticated reforms and initiatives that tackle poverty. Said Wolfensohn; "African governments can build on progress already evident in a number of countries that have reduced conflict, and are addressing corruption to cut poverty levels."
14 marzo 2005	THE DAILY NATION Blair report calls for massive aid to Africa Publication Date: 3/12/2005 Story by PAUL REDFERN in London An ambitious Africa recovery plan sponsored by British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday challenged the rich world to end "appalling" trade protectionism and inject an extra $25 billion (Sh2 trillion) a year in aid. But the report faced a daunting task to gain acceptance from the Group of Eight (G8) rich nations and win over sceptics who saw it as nothing new. British High Commissioner Sir Edward Clay and Planning minister Anyang' Nyong'o with a copy of the Blair commission report during a news conference at the minister's Treasury Building office in Nairobi yesterday "African poverty and stagnation is the greatest tragedy of our time," said the 464-page report by the commission, which includes Mr Blair, his finance minister, several African leaders and Irish rock star turned campaigner Bob Geldof. Its promoters liken it to the post-Second World War "Marshall Plan" for recovery in Europe. "Let us today pledge to make 2005 the year our eyes opened to the full reality of Africa," Mr Blair said at a London launch for the plan. "To the horror of its daily and preventable death toll, to the grinding misery of so many millions of its people, yet also to the hope that together we can change that reality for the better." Critics, however, said the report’s lofty words would go the same way as previous Africa plans unless rich nation groups like the G8 and the European Union, both of which Britain chairs this year, put their money where their mouths are. Immediate reaction from Africa, where some view the plan as a way for Mr Blair to recoup public relations damage caused by his Iraq policy, was sceptical. While South African president Thabo Mbeki said he hoped the report "will indeed serve the purpose for which it was intended", Madagascar economics lecturer Airy Ramiarison told rich countries to "just stick to the promises they have already made". Mr Pete Ondeng’, head of a lobby for a home-grown African economic plan, called it "a slap in the face of Africa." Western charities were cautious too. Britain’s ActionAid called the recommendations "an ambitious but realistic agenda" and said: "The first real test will be whether it is acted upon at the G8 leaders’ Gleneagles summit (in Scotland) in July." A central plank for funding the plan - the British-proposed International Finance Facility to borrow against future aid pledges - has already drawn US opposition. The report called for a vast increase in aid to Africa - an extra $25 billion a year until 2010, and $50 billion annually thereafter. The report says Western companies are often as guilty as African governments since they sell lucrative deals to corrupt regimes through bribes, making the West play a major part in perpetuating corruption. It adds: "If it does so in its own activities - and demands it in the activities of private sector agents, like the multinational companies active in developing countries - then it will encourage similar standards in the way African countries manage cash." "It is pointless to bemoan African corruption when (the West) does not take the measures to counter it."
11 marzo 2005	La Repubblica on-line [www.repubblica.it] Un New Deal per l'Africa la povertà e la stagnazione sono la più grande tragedia del nostro tempo di TONY BLAIR 11 marzo 2005 UN ANNO fa ho istituito la Commissione per l'Africa affidandole il compito di elaborare un piano coerente e globale di reali cambiamenti che avrebbero contribuito a realizzare un'azione energica e proficua. Nel corso degli ultimi dieci mesi, 17 commissari indipendenti (in maggioranza africani) hanno tenuto ampie consultazioni con l'Unione africana, i governi, gli specialisti dello sviluppo, le Ong, gruppi religiosi, accademici, filosofi, economisti, capi d'impresa, gruppi giovanili e femminili, in 49 paesi africani e non. Nel rapporto della Commissione, pubblicato oggi, abbiamo quel piano. Il rapporto s'intitola "Il nostro interesse comune", ed è questo interesse comune a cui lavorerò nel corso delle presidenze britanniche sia del G8 che dell'Ue per realizzare un cambiamento per l'Africa. Il supporto dell'Italia in entrambe le organizzazioni sarà essenziale. Mi auguro leggiate il rapporto; credo che ciò che emerga sia la robusta analisi dei problemi e la ampia e ambiziosa natura delle soluzioni proposte. Questo non è un rapporto espresso nel solito linguaggio diplomatico. È eccezionalmente schietto circa i fallimenti dei governi e delle politiche sia in Africa che nel mondo. La povertà e la stagnazione africane sono la più grande tragedia del nostro tempo. È un fatto inaccettabile che l'Africa continui a rimanere sempre più indietro quando, come mostra il nostro rapporto, le politiche giuste potrebbero generare tassi di crescita economica fino al 7%, mettendo l'Africa in carreggiata per conseguire gli obiettivi del 2015 per lo sviluppo nell'ambito degli Obiettivi di Sviluppo del Millennio fissati dalla comunità internazionale nel 2000. Il 2005 è il momento di agire, non soltanto perché ci sono dei programmi internazionali ma perché l'Africa sta compiendo progressi. Nell'ultimo decennio, 16 paesi dell'Africa sub-sahariana hanno registrato tassi di crescita di oltre il 4%. Più dei due terzi hanno avuto elezioni pluripartitiche. L'Unione africana sta assumendo un ruolo guida, soprattutto nella costruzione della pace e della sicurezza attraverso una politica di "non indifferenza", contro la vecchia non interferenza della precedente organizzazione dell'Unione africana. Ma ci sono ancora enormi sfide. La catastrofe dell'Aids ne è un esempio. Il rapporto della Commissione è un'onesta valutazione di queste sfide. L'Africa è il continente più fortemente colpito dall'epidemia dell'Hiv/Aids: 20 milioni di africani sono già morti di questa malattia. In alcuni paesi, il 40% della gente ha contratto l'infezione. La probabilità di vita scenderà presto a soli 30 anni. Un altro esempio è la guerra in Sudan: per lo meno 2 milioni di persone sono morte nel conflitto nord-sud del Sudan negli ultimi 21 anni e altri milioni ne hanno subito le conseguenze. Sappiamo che la comunità internazionale può e deve offrire maggiori risorse affinché l'Africa possa cogliere quest'opportunità. La Commissione chiede il raddoppio degli aiuti e la cancellazione del 100% del debito per i paesi che ne hanno bisogno. Questo non è gettare denaro dietro i problemi. Nel rapporto si dimostra come questo denaro può venire assorbito e impiegato validamente. E in maniera altrettanto importante, il rapporto mostra in che modo la comunità internazionale deve eliminare gli ostacoli allo sviluppo africano, a esempio abolendo le sovvenzioni e il protezionismo dei paesi ricchi nel settore agricoltura e anche riducendo le barriere commerciali interne in Africa. Questo, assieme alla crescita che migliorerà la capacità produttiva dell'Africa, è necessario per agevolare l'attività commerciale africana in un sistema internazionale più equo. A livello bilaterale, Regno Unito e Italia stanno facendo il possibile per aiutare. I nostri due governi stanno collaborando strettamente sulla politica relativa all'Hiv/Aids in Africa. Il governo italiano ha dimostrato un particolare impegno nei confronti del mantenimento della pace in Sudan, e confidiamo di compiere ulteriori progressi per migliorare la capacità africana di mantenimento della pace. L'Italia inoltre è stata attiva negli ultimi anni relativamente all'iniziativa per i Paesi altamente indebitati e allo sgravio del debito, concludendo accordi sulla remissione del debito con 17 paesi africani, dal Benin all'Uganda. L'Italia si è poi impegnata a raggiungere entro il 2006 il livello minimo fissato dalla Ue dello 0,33% del Pil in aiuti, per muoversi poi verso lo 0,7%. Ma tutti noi dobbiamo fare di più. Gli investimenti servono subito, quindi si devono trovare modi per colmare il divario. Gordon Brown ha illustrato un modo in cui farlo, mediante l'International finance facility, che raccoglierebbe altri aiuti in denaro mediante il leveraging dei mercati di capitale e l'emissione di obbligazioni. Accolgo con favore il sostegno del ministro delle Finanze Siniscalco a questa iniziativa; ora dobbiamo operare uniti per tramutarla in realtà. Le basi per un'azione devono tuttavia essere in Africa. Gli africani devono determinare il futuro del continente. Due elementi essenziali sono la pace e la sicurezza e sistemi di governo trasparenti e responsabili dotati di risorse per agire a livello locale e nazionale. Al centro dell'orientamento della Commissione c'è anche la gente, con l'istruzione e la sanità a ogni livello come elementi essenziali per la realizzazione dei diritti della gente. Riunendo tutte queste questioni in un unico piano, che non sia un elenco da cui "scegliere solo il meglio", il rapporto ci offre una base di lavoro comune. Come riconosciamo nel rapporto che le soluzioni devono tenere conto delle diversità dell'Africa, così credo che i componenti della comunità internazionale, iniziando con il vertice del G8 di quest'anno, saranno in grado di offrire il loro particolarissimo contributo per il raggiungimento degli obiettivi illustrati dalla Commissione.
10 marzo 2005	THE STANDARD Government urges donors to soften foreign aid terms Thursday March 10, 2005 Tom Mogusu The Government yesterday appealed to the donor community to soften conditionalities attached to their loans to African countries. Mr Donald Kibera, the Director of External Resources Department in the Ministry of Finance said most of the conditionalities were detrimental to the improvement of living standards in recipient countries. "The conditionalities are often in conflict with the principle of country ownership," Kibera said. "Donors therefore need to align all conditions with the recipient country’s poverty reduction strategy." The push to put a stop to conditionalities was part of the Rome declaration that all development partners endorsed in February 2003. Kibera said the conditionalities were partly to blame for the continued rise in the level of impoverishment in the developing world. He was speaking at a Nairobi hotel during the opening of a Japanese government-sponsored consultative seminar on Official Development Assistance (ODA). The seminar was attended by senior Government officers and representatives of key Japanese development agencies. "We would like our development partners, including the Government of Japan, to harmonise their practices and other procedures used in lending out funds," Kibera said. This, he said, was important if the desire to reduce the transaction costs that are normally associated with aid delivery is to be realised. Kenya is currently one of the leading recipients of Japanese aid, with the cumulative assistance standing at about Sh270 billion. The assistance covers priority areas of co-operation such as economic infrastructure, education, human resource development, health, environmental conservation and rural development. In 2003, Kenya received a total of US$43 million in Japanese assistance. This was in the form of grant aid and technical cooperation. Kibera however suggested that time was ripe for the donor community to increase aid inflows to Kenya in line with the country’s monetary commitments. There is also a need for the donor community to use knowledge management more effectively to better disseminate good practices on harmonisation. Projects should also be aligned to managing and realising results, Kibera said. "There are concerns that donor countries should ensure that their field representatives and staff have the necessary commitment, flexibility, authority and expertise to achieve results." While continuing to use project financing, Kibera said that there was also a need to increase use modalities are that are flexible in the dispersion of aid. The Government has also asked donors to fund the development of capacity in public and community-based organisations.
7 marzo 2005	THE DAILY NATION Cancel Third World debts, says Maathai Publication Date: 3/6/2005 Story by KWAMBOKA OYARO Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai has called upon developed countries to cancel debts owed by Third World countries. Addressing delegates at the United Nations Conference on the Status of Women in New York, Prof Wangari said servicing debts continued to impoverish the already poor countries. "This is punishing poor countries and women. Reducing poverty is one of the Millennium Development Goals but this can't be achieved without capital. We must all aspire to make poverty history." To show their commitment in poverty reduction, Prof Maathai asked developed countries to open their markets for accessibility by developing countries as "this is fair trade''. She dedicated her Nobel Peace Prize to all women. "Sisters, this wasn't an individual effort but a symbol of all of us. It was given to recognise women and the efforts we have made over the years." She said her Green Belt Movement that won the prize was born during consultations by Kenyan women as they prepared for the women's first conference in Mexico in 1975. Then, the greatest concern of the country's rural women and the message they wanted taken to Mexico was the need for clean drinking water, nutritious food, sufficient income and fuel [firewood]. "Thirty years after that conference that set the agenda for women's issues, we are still relating environmental issues to women. With global climatic change there is adverse impact on women as availability of water becomes scarce, yet deforrestation continues unabated," Prof Maathai told delegates who filled the conference room and spilled over to a second room and enthusiastically applaused their heroine. To advance this, Maathi has picked 'Mutainai', a Japanese word, to spearhead her global campaign for environmental sustainability. 'Mutainai' means reducing consumption, reusing, recycling and repair - a summary of the four "R" principles for the conservation of resources. "Wars are fought over resources. It is time we started to manage our resources efficiently and share them equitably to ensure peace reigns," she said, holding a T-shirt bearing Mutainai. She adopted the name after she visited Japan recently and talked about the four "R's" and was told that the name described all the four principles.
1 marzo 2005	THE DAILY NATION Kenya to Benefit From Sh2,720bn IDA Funding February 26, 2005 Kenya is among 81 countries targeted by a Sh2,720 billion fund from the World Bank through the International Development Association. Major donors have agreed to provide the funds for development assistance to poor countries through the 14th replenishment of the Association. This is the first concrete step in bringing resources to the poorest countries, the World Bank said in a statement, released in Nairobi yesterday. The Association is a World Bank affiliate that provides assistance to the world's poorest countries. Sh1,440 billion will be new contributions from 40 donor countries. "This represents, at a minimum, a 25 per cent increase in overall resources over the previous replenishment, and is the largest expansion of the IDA (International Development Association) resources in two decades," the statement said. While donor countries made firm financial commitments to the replenishment, the statement said, some are still exploring the possibility of increasing their pledges to reach the 30 per cent target supported at the Athens IDA deputies meeting. World Bank President James Wolfensohn was quoted in the statement as saying: "IDA is the lifeline for many of the world's poorest people and this increase in IDA resources represents a major step forward in the international community's efforts to fight poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals."
1 marzo 2005	THE STANDARD Donors might get tougher on Kenya February 25, 2005 By Nixon Ng’ang’a Kenya could face tougher aid conditions as donors react to allegations of high-level corruption in Government. Yesterday, the Senior Resident Representative of the International Monetary Fund Jurgen Reitmaier told a Parliamentary Committee that a review of the conditionalities attached to donor support would be the natural consequence of concerns over corruption in recipient countries. He told the Finance, Trade, Tourism and Planning Committee that key lenders normally attached "dynamic" conditions to their funds and that these conditions were subject to review whenever there was any doubt on proper use of the funds. "The IMF did express concerns over the corruption allegations. The team did mention that conditions (on aid) are dynamic and do evolve all the times," Committee chairman Mutahi Kagwe to journalists during a briefing session at Parliament buildings. He, however, said the IMF did not give any indication that it planned to act in a drastic way over mounting concerns over corruption but warned that the Government could not afford to be complacent on the matter. In an apparent reaction to the resignation of Governance and Ethics PS John Githongo, Reitmaier is reported to have indicated the IMF’s interest in the strengthening of the Kenya’s anti-graft institutions. Githongo who was President Kibaki personal advisor on the fight against corruption resigned earlier this month in what his friends said was his frustration by lack of political support in his work. The US and German governments reacted to Githongo’s resignation by withholding nearly Sh700 million they had promised in support of anti-corruption programmes. A delegation of the IMF’s senior managers is scheduled to meet President Kibaki "soon" for talks where allegations of corruption in Government are expected to feature prominently. Outside corruption concerns, yesterday’s meeting also discussed conditions that the IMF attached to its loans, how best to spend the funds and permissible levels of borrowing that Kenya can afford. The meeting further debated the prevailing interest rates in the country. While the Fund argues the current rates are too low and are fuelling inflation, the committee maintained that they remain a vital means of spurring economic growth. The meeting agreed that fluctuation of interest rates is unhealthy as it negatively affects the stability of the bond market. The Government has been inundated by calls for resignation and possible prosecutions of senior Government officers including ministers linked to corruption. President Kibaki made token changes to his Cabinet early in the month ostensibly to mollify the concerns but that has not silenced calls for more decisive action. At least six members the National Anti-Corruption Campaign Steering Committee have also resigned to protest what they perceive as the Government lip service to fighting institutionalised graft.
24 febbraio 2005	THE DAILY NATION Firm's bid to use Kibaki name in land scandal Publication Date: 2/20/2005 Story by BOB ODALO The Sunday Nation – NEWS A national programme aimed at providing decent and affordable housing has been hit by scandal after a company invoking President Kibaki's support laid claim to 200 of the 250 acres set aside for a pilot project in Athi River township. The issue came into the open at a meeting last Wednesday, when an official of UN-Habitat presented a project proposal by the private firm. The document claimed that the company's officials had presented their proposal to the President, who in turn instructed the minister for Lands and Housing to provide the land for the housing development scheme. The issue has angered officials of the Mavoko Municipal Council, who say that a project aimed at providing housing for the poor is being grabbed by the rich. It has also divided officials of UN-Habitat, with some staffers disowning their colleague who introduced the proposal. Contacted by the Sunday Nation, however, Presidential Press Service director Isaiah Kabira denied emphatically that the private company had ever secured President Kibaki's support. He also said the President had never met officials of the company, contrary to claims in the document. Mr Kabira said the President, as the patron of the national slum upgrading and affordable housing initiative, would never get involved in the affairs of any individual project within any town or locality. He said that some individuals may be trying to take advantage of the President's support for the affordable housing project to pursue their own interests. The document presented at last Wednesday's meeting by the UN-Habitat official read: "The presidential directive for this development arose from a meeting at State House, to which His Excellency the President of Kenya had invited [officials of the company] to present their project." It went on to state that following the President's instructions, officials of the company met with Lands and Housing minister Amos Kimunya at Ardhi House, Nairobi, last December 17. Also allegedly present were ministry and Habitat officials. The result, they alleged, was that the company was offered the Athi River site. The document claims that a draft agreement between the company an the Government was then drawn up and agreed on by both sides. Mr Kimunya could not be reached for comment yesterday. The original project in Athi River, dubbed the Sustainable Neighbourhood Programme (SNP), falls under the Kenya Slum Upgrading Programme (KENSUP). It is a joint venture between the governments of Kenya and Finland with support from UN-Habitat, being the implementing agencies for the planning phase. It was at a routine meeting on Wednesday in the Ardhi House conference room when a Habitat official stunned participants by introducing proposals from the private company. "I looked at the whole document and I found it to be doubtful. I think the Habitat officials are better placed to explain their relation with the company, if the company really exists," Mr Cassius Kusienya, a chief housing officer in the ministry, told the Sunday Nation. The following day, Mayor Joseph Musau Mutuku of Mavoko municipality accused Habitat officials and senior ministry staffers of trying to "steal" the project from the poor. Mayor Mutuku said they had held a series of meetings since 2003 and never at any time was the private company involved. The Sunday Nation was present on Thursday, when the mayor spoke on phone to the Habitat official who had introduced the document. The official reportedly told the mayor not to involve the Press in the whole saga as the company was linked to influential leaders close to the Presidency. "I don’t give a damn whether the President is involved," the mayor retorted. "I am a political leader and the people who are supposed to benefit in this project are my subjects. They will definitely demand an explanation." This reporter then took the phone and spoke to the official, who denied having anything to do with the private company. Speaking separately, two UN-Habitat officials attached to the Slum Upgrading Facility (SUF), Mr Chris Williams and Mr Michael Matters, blamed their colleague for the saga and distanced the organisation from the private company. "The development is sad and it portrays UN-Habitat in a negative way," they said.
23 febbraio 2005	THE STANDARD UN advisor warns Africa against implementing SAPs Wednesday February 23, 2005 Tom Mogusu African countries were yesterday warned against blindly implementing Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs). Professor Geoffrey Sachs, the special advisor to the UN Secretary General and Director of the Millennium Development Projects (MDGs) described the SAPs as a disaster, saying they had contributed to the spread of poverty in the developing world. Sachs said that the SAPs and liberalisation policies that were imposed on the developing world in the late 1980s and early 1990s were based on wrong fundamentals. "You cannot prescribe belt tightening to a people who have no belts," Sachs told the National Conference for Revitalising the Agricultural Sector at Safari Park Hotel, Nairobi. President Kibaki officially opened the conference that is being attended by Cabinet ministers, representative of the private sector and agri-based institutes. Sachs poured cold water on the policies, which he said were imposed on many countries by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Privatisation and liberalisation will not break the cycle of poverty," he said. "Poor countries need more than that. What they need are new investments in basic areas that affect the poor." At the height of their implementation, the structural adjustment programmes became part of the conditionalities that the donor community tied to release crucial funding to third world governments. The SAPs were implemented at a time when most African countries were ushering in a new era of democracy following the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, the most painful development was the introduction of cost-cutting measures by the third world governments. In Kenya, some of the cost-cutting measures introduced included cost sharing in public hospitals and schools. Even though these measures were engineered by Mr Stern Fisher, the then deputy director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the donor community used them as the yard-stick of how third world economies should be managed. President Kibaki was the key speaker at yesterday’s function. Sachs insisted that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) provide a clear road-map for poor countries fighting to break the poverty cycle. He described the MDGs as a commitment of the rich countries to help the poor — mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Through the MDGs, Sachs said, official development assistance would have to be increased by close to 0.7 per cent — which translates to about $140 billion more than the current flows. Away from liberalisation and SAPs, Sachs said the Millennium Goals seek to win additional investments in critical areas that will open the way for poverty reduction. He identified the areas as education, basic health, infrastructure, safe drinking water and reducing the costs of agricultural inputs to farmers. Sachs regretted that rural communities continued to struggle under the weight of poverty and economic decline. "The crisis requires investments that they cannot afford," he said. "What the rural communities need is to be empowered to stop using the traditional ways of doing things." Sachs, however, warned that most third world countries were following the wrong course in their implementation of the Millennium Goals.
22 febbraio 2005	THE STANDARD Kibaki appeals to donors for millenium goals funds Tuesday, February 22, 2005 Benson Kathuri President Kibaki yesterday asked the international community to channel more funds to implement the Millennium Development Goals in developing countries. Kibaki said though the global community had agreed in principle to implement the development goals, developing countries may not be able to mobilise the required resources. "The challenges in meeting the Millennium Development Goals are enormous for developing countries and international cooperation is crucial for the implementation of these goals," said the President. During the millennium conference in New York in 2000, world leaders committed themselves to reduce poverty by half by 2015. Other goals agreed upon include combating Aids, reduce hunger, curb environmental degradation and increase people’s access to clean water and sanitation. Speaking at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) headquarters at Gigiri, Kibaki said there was need for renewed global commitment in order to realise the 2015 target. Though some parts of the world, including Latin America and Asia, are on track on the set goals, Africa is lagging behind and may never attain a single goal. The continent would require huge amounts of money to achieve the targets as more than half of the population is living in abject poverty. "Whereas there has been some level of achievements, extreme poverty, high mortality rates, increasing number of slums dwellers and limited or complete lack of access to clean water and basic sanitation are clear reminders that the world must do more," said Kibaki. The president also expressed concern over environmental degradation whose effects were hurting the developing countries. He said drought had become a common feature in Kenya due to the warming effects caused by air pollution by the industrialised countries. Though he welcomed last Wednesday’s adoption of Kyoto Protocol that promises to address global warming effects, Kibaki called upon those countries that had not ratified it to so. "The coming into force of the Kyoto Protocol is indeed a historical step to humankind as it opens the way for addressing global warming which has been blamed for rising world temperatures, melting glaciers and rising sea levels," said Kibaki. The president also decried the uncontrolled use of plastic bags saying it was now turning into an eyesore especially in the cities. He said the bags had become an environmental issue that needed to be addressed. Speaking at the same forum, UN-Habitat executive director Dr. Anna Tibaijuka warned that unless the development targets are met, about 1.5 billion people would be living in urban slums by 2020. She said one billion people are living in pathetic situations in slums. "Urban poverty is vividly manifested in slums and if the trends continue, 1.5 billion people will live in slums by the year 2020," she said.
22 febbraio 2005	THE EAST AFRICAN Githongo: Kenya Could Lose More Aid Regional News Monday, February 14, 2005 By KEVIN J. KELLEY SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT KENYA’S FAILURE to stem new corruption could ultimately cost it much more than the $2.5 million in suspended funding announced by US Ambassador William Bellamy in Nairobi last Tuesday, just a day after anti-corruption czar John Githongo resigned. President George W. Bush’s budget proposals, also announced last week, reveal long-term development assistance trends unfavourable to countries, such as Kenya, judged not to be meeting US standards for good governance. Institutional lenders like the International Monetary Fund, however, advocate caution in responses to corruption issues in Kenya and many other African countries where spending on the national security sector is secretive and liable to abuse. "The way the Fund looks at issues is different from a political perspective. We look at programmes and examine the underlying issues and then make judgments of what is needed to correct problems," an IMF official said. With regard to military procurement the official said the Fund was looking for solutions elsewhere in Africa or in the world that might help in addressing the Kenyan problem. "We have known that military procurement is a major weak link in many African countries. We want to identify practices in other countries that are significantly stronger," the official said. The IMF, it is understood, plans no imminent cutoff or reduction in its assistance to Kenya as a result of Bellamy's statement, which was preceded by a scathing attack inaction against corrupt public officials. That may change, however, once an IMF mission scheduled for Nairobi next month makes a factual assessment. In his spending plan for the fiscal year beginning next October, President Bush puts greater emphasis on the Millennium Challenge Account, an aid programme tied to anti-corruption efforts, cutting funding for traditional development aid given to poor countries politically aligned with the US. President Bush is seeking $3 billion next year for the Millennium Challenge programme – double the amount approved by the US Congress for the current fiscal year. At the same time, the budget proposal calls for a $300 million cut in child-health assistance and a similar reduction in long-term development aid to poor countries. In the past, child-health and development assistance funds have been among the largest sources of US aid to Kenya. It is apparent that money may be taken from traditional aid programmes that do not involve rigorous tests for eligibility, and be given to President Bush’s signature aid initiatives and to US efforts to cool hot spots in the developing world. Critics say President Bush is "robbing Peter to pay Paul." "The president had pledged to fund new development initiatives without taking the money out of important existing programmes, but he has failed to follow through on this promise," comments Steve Radelet, a fellow at the Washington-based Centre for Global Development. The development-assistance shifts appear potentially beneficial to Tanzania and Uganda, however, after failure to make progress on containing corruption that caused them to be excluded from the Millennium Challenge programme last year despite having qualified as "threshold" recipients. Kenya's East African Community partners stand a good chance of winning full admission to the Millennium programme later this year, gifting them several million dollars more in US development aid with the extent of additional support resting at the mercy of the US Congress. President Bush may not get anything close to the $3 billion he is seeking for the Millennium Challenge Account. Congress has proven reluctant in the past to meet the White House’s funding requests for the two-year-old programme. It has yet to disburse a single dollar of assistance to any of the 16 countries chosen last year for the first round of Millennium aid. The delays in implementing the highly touted programme have damaged its credibility in Congress. As a result, some analysts predict the Millennium Challenge Account will receive only about $2 billion for the coming year. Although all three East African countries can meanwhile look forward to sizeable increases in anti-Aids funding from the US, Mr Githongo's resignation, and calls by some Cabinet ministers in President Mwai Kibaki's feuding government for him to take action against corrupt officials, have badly damaged Kenya's chances. Health Minister Charity Ngilu, and her colleagues Prof Anyang' Nyong'o of National Development and Raila Odinga of Roads added their voices to Vice President Moody Awori's admission that emerging corruption was holding back the government from fulfilling promises made to Kenyans just over two years ago when, with an overwhelming majority, it swept Kanu out of power. With calls for President Kibaki to end his silence and crack the whip mounting, members of his own NARC government, Kanu, civic society and religious organisations found a common ground against the continued retention in government of corrupt ministers and top civil servants. Reports of a reshuffle targeting the Office of the President and the Ministries of Lands and Tourism that surfaced last Thursday turned out not to be as the president issued a bland statement in which he sought to end accusations that his government was soft on corruption. He ordered immediate investigations into suspect government contracts running into billions of shillings. In statement issued from State House on Thursday night, President Kibaki said he had "ordered the Kenya Anti-corruption Commission to move with speed and act appropriately to ensure that there is no loss of government funds and necessary action is taken." President Bush’s emergency Aids relief programme – which targets Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and 13 other poor countries – would receive $3.2 billion next year in accordance with the spending plan being submitted to Congress. That sum represents a $300 million increase over current levels. Anti-Aids assistance to Kenya will soar from $107 million this year to $162 million next year. Tanzania will see its share of anti-Aids funds rise from $80 million to $105 million, while the total for Uganda is set to grow from $105 million this year to $186 million in fiscal 2006. These proposed allocations were determined by the White House prior to Mr Bellamy’s recent condemnation of Kenya’s slow pace in disbursing US anti-Aids funds. Because of the envoy’s attack, it is possible that the US Congress will decide to reduce the amount of Aids assistance for Kenya that President Bush is seeking. The president’s budget plan calls for continued decreases in child-health assistance to all three East African countries. The amounts proposed for 2006 are roughly one-third or one-half the size of what was provided in 2004. This reduction appears to conform with the pattern of cutting funds in long-standing development programmes in order to finance increases in Mr Bush’s own initiatives, including the global Aids relief project. In the broad development-assistance category, however, Kenya and Tanzania are both in line for small funding increases – from $15.8 million to $16.3 million in Kenya’s case, and from $8 million to $8.7 million in Tanzania’s. Development aid to Uganda would meanwhile drop from $27.2 million in 2005 to $21.4 million next year. The overall shifts in US foreign assistance sketched in President Bush’s plan are further reflected in new "transition initiative" programmes for Sudan and Ethiopia. They stand to receive $70 million and $25 million, respectively, in accordance with a White House effort to strengthen weak states in areas of strategic importance to the US. Funds set aside for international disaster relief are scheduled to grow as well. American contributions to United Nations peacekeeping operations will also increase substantially in 2006 under President Bush’s proposals, although US allocations for other UN programmes, such as Unicef and the UN Development Programme, will be cut. According to some analysts, these movements of funds reflect the Bush administration’s preference for unilateral initiatives abroad, except in regard to the burden of peacekeeping in Africa, where the US appears eager to share with others. Overall, President Bush’s budget contains nearly $23 billion for US foreign assistance in 2006 – about 16 per cent more than is being provided in the current year. The total US budget for 2006 will approach $2.6 trillion. The Pentagon will likely receive about $500 billion in the coming year – or about 15 times as much as the US will provide in peaceful assistance to other countries.
16 febbraio 2005	THE STANDARD NGOs want Cabinet dissolved to reduce corruption Friday February 18, 2005 By Patrick Mathangani Nineteen civil society organisations yesterday called for a vote of no confidence in the Kibaki Government for failing to act on grand corruption. The organizations said that by failing to sack corrupt Cabinet ministers, President Kibaki had proved to Kenyans that he was a "helpless captive" of corruption cartels. "Time has come for Kenyans to take decisive action against this government to compel it to respond to public expectations or quit," they said in a joint statement. They said Kibaki’s failure to sack corrupt members of his Cabinet was "contemptuous and insulting to the Kenyan people." The groups said Kibaki’s reshuffle this week had paved the way for corrupt ministers and officials to indulge in corruption because his actions had assured them they would not be sacked. They also claimed Kibaki had shown he had no regard for public opinion, saying this was why he had remained unmoved even as Kenyans demanded action against grand corruption. It also proved that Kibaki had no regard for the rule of law, the organisations added. The organisations which signed the statement were the African Women’s Development and Communication Network, Centre for Governance and Development, Centre for Legal Advocacy and Research International, Centre for Rights, Education and Awareness, Children’s Rights Advocacy Documentation and Legal Education, Coalition on Violence Against Women, Constitutional Reform and Education Consortium, EcoNews Africa, Institute for Education in Democracy, International Commission of Jurists and Kenya Association of Manufacturers. Others were Kenya Human Rights Commission, Kituo Cha Sheria, Legal Resources Foundation, Mazingira Institute, National Convention Executive Council, Release Political Prisoners, Urgent Action Fund and Youth Agenda. They said: "This is why ministers and senior officials are flagrantly disobeying laws established to protect the country against official thieves and abusers of public office…" They charged that Kibaki had no regard to the intelligence of Kenyans, and the Government was taking "the form and character of a predator state." "Indeed, President Kibaki’s action confirms that his government is embedded in Moi’s legacy of creating laws and institutions only for them to remain showcase as there is no commitment to enforcement," the statement added. Meanwhile, a public forum in Nairobi yesterday roundly condemned corruption and the poor human rights record of the Narc government, reports Argwings Odera. The forum organised by Transparency International (Kenya) and the Kenya Social Forum among others drew about 200 activists and professionals from diverse backgrounds of Kenya. Setting the forum’s agenda, Mr Elkana Odembo of Bomas Katiba Watch criticised the Government for undermining public service delivery, especially in health, education, energy, agriculture and economy. "Clearly, the war against corruption cannot be won if left in the hands of (President Mwai) Kibaki, his government and commission," he said while detailing excessive bureaucracy in the Government. Transparency International (Kenya) Executive Director Ms Gladwell Otieno cited political office insecurity as one of the numerous factors facilitating corruption in Kenya. She said lack of political goodwill, excessive bureaucracy and over-regulation, lack of protection for whistle blowers, weak enforcement and patronage networks were some of the factors that made corruption networks thrive. She called for a vote of no confidence in the Government and urged civil society activists to reconsider their positions in various government-created commissions. She called on the Government to guarantee the personal safety of former Ethics and Governance PS John Githongo who resigned last week citing frustration by corrupt networks. The Shadow Finance minister, Mr Billow Kerrow, said the system of government, including excessive powers of the first family and kitchen cabinets were the main causes of corruption in the country. Saying public servants implicated in corruption should vacate their positions, he added that the courts of public opinion were of more importance than a court of law. He said President Kibaki’s difficulty in firing corrupt Ministers was because of his fear of losing political constituencies of the affected ministers. "Asking Parliament to dissolve is like asking President Kibaki to quit," he said. Mr Patrick Kiage of the Law Society of Kenya called for a "shift in consciousness" by the public so that they could look at corrupt people as simple thieves. "The Attorney-General cannot merely cite lack of evidence in most of these cases. These people can be charged with simple theft, theft by servant, abuse of office, conspiracy to defraud, or the very least behaving in a manner likely to cause a breach of the peace." David Makali, representing the media, said high expectations on journalists should be lowered because "crusade journalism" could easily breach the professional ethics of objectivity. "The media can only report. We cannot crusade, otherwise we will have crossed the professional line," he said. Ms Esther Pasaris Of Adopt-a-Light cautioned Kenyans against branding major corporate or entrepreneurial efforts as corruption. "Fighting anything big because people think it is corrupt will leave the country with a lot of money in institutions but no development," she said. Oduor Ong’wen of Echo-News reiterated that the Ndegwa Commission that allowed civil servants to conduct business in the 1970s should be revisited as part of the efforts to end corruption.
16 febbraio 2005	THE STANDARD Government set to de-link donor funds from Budget Thursday February 17, 2005 Tom Mogusu The Government yesterday hinted that it would not factor donor funds in the 2005 Budget. Treasury Permanent Secretary Joseph Kinyua further disclosed that the Government would cut back on its reliance on donor support. In the past, donor support formed a huge chunk of Government’s expenditure, to account for slightly more than 20 per cent. This figure is, however, much lower than Uganda where 45 per cent of the annual budget is donor-sourced. While Tanzania is estimated at 60 per cent. "Given the increased uncertainty of donor budgetary support, the medium-term projection does not assume any budgetary support in form of programme grants from bilateral and development partners,"indicated the report. According to the Budget Outlook Paper issued yesterday, the three-year Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) had factored Sh5 billion in donor support for the 2005-2006 and 2007-2008 financial years. The pre-budget review paper was presented yesterday by Kinyua at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC) where Treasury officials held a consultative forum with other line ministries and Government departments. The lack of Sh5 billion will, however, force the Government to look inwards by way of increased revenue and reduction of expenditure to close the gap. Some of the fiscal measures the Government might consider include raising revenues by accelerating administrative improvements at the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA). It could also plans to tighten tax exemptions, which are estimated to have cost the Government Sh17 billion in the 2003-2004 financial year. "It will also consider expenditure cuts, especially in transfers," indicates the budget outlook. The outlook further indicates that in the event that budgetary support from bilateral grants becomes available, such funds would be used to boost expenditures in the social sectors, especially in health and education, and within the productive sectors. The Government said the reform process would be rolled out as it tries to raise additional funding that will stop it from relying on donor support. The new approach, it says, is intended to strengthen ownership of its reforms strategy. "Government can confidently say that it is implementing reforms, such as privatisation, not at the behest of donors, but because it is the right policy for Kenya if it is to achieve its objective of growth and poverty reduction." Since the medium-term framework is based on conservative assumptions, the overall Government spending is unlikely to be adjusted downwards. This, it says, provides a reasonable measure of predictability. The changes in expenditure have also forced the Government to change the macroeconomic framework in the original ERS (Economic Recovery Strategy). The revision has been made to take into account lower external assistance, deterioration in trade and capacity constraints. "The revised framework is consistent with the one underlying the PRGF arrangement and the first annual review of the ERS," points out the report.
16 febbraio 2005	ANGOLA PRESS Kenyan officials, donors brainstorm on new funding round 14/02/2005 Nairobi, Kenya, 02/14 - Kenya`s key bilateral and multilateral donors are meeting with finance ministry officials in Nairobi to discuss grey areas in the country`s economic recovery strategy ahead of an April Donor Consultative Group meeting, officials said Monday here. The meeting, which is crucial in determining how much funds the Kenyan government would receive this year to finance its economic recovery strategy over the next three years and plug a 57 billion shillings (1 USD = 77 shs) budget deficit, will identify sector by sector funding needs. Swedish ambassador Bo Goransson said the Donor Consultative Group meeting, which was last held in Nairobi two years ago, would provide the donors with an opportunity to engage the government in "constructive dialogue." "It is important to have this dialogue to determine the prerequisites of the country`s economic and social needs. This meeting is important in making our April donor consultative forum successful," Goransson told journalists in Nairobi. Finance ministry permanent secretary Joseph Kinyua said the meeting with the donors was a preparatory process during which the government will appeal for direct budget support for the next five years. "We need to discuss our budget proposals and give them an opportunity to discuss areas where they think we need reforms," Kinyua said. The Swedish envoy said a selected group of donors attending the Monday meeting will also seek explanations from the government "about recent developments" in the war against corruption, which was a key factor in the last donor forum. "We are voicing our concerns about recent developments in Kenya and we want to hear what action the government has taken," Goransson said. Kenyan Finance Minister David Mwiraria said the government would issue a comprehensive statement on allegations of grand corruption before Wednesday to lay to rest speculation over the involvement of ministers in graft.
11 febbraio 2005	IRIN [www.irinnews.org] Western donors urge action on reports of corruption and bad governance 10 Feb 2005 Western donors on Thursday urged the Kenyan government to act on reports of corruption and bad governance. They said graft was hurting Kenya and affecting efforts to put the East African country on track towards achieving development goals. "We share the deep concern felt by the Kenyan people about lack of good governance and the damage it causes to the nation's welfare and the effective operation of its institutions," the European Union (EU) said in a statement signed by representatives of its member states and the European Commission's delegation in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. "The creation of the machinery to fight corruption was welcomed," it noted. "These institutions have been impeded in their operations and this week's resignation of the PS in the Office of Governance and Ethics has further emphasised the loss of credibility of the government in its political will to fight corruption." "The government of Kenya must take the lead by addressing governance and especially corruption as part of an urgent effort to try to put Kenya back on track towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals," the statement added. The statement followed a scathing attack on official corruption on 2 February by the UK ambassador in Nairobi, Sir Edward Clay, who told reporters: "Corruption is the single biggest impediment to good governance in Kenya [...] Many stones remain unturned … many, many stones." Clay said he had given President Mwai Kibaki a dossier of 20 new corruption cases expected to cost Kenyans millions of dollars. Days after Clay's attack, John Githongo, the highest ranking anti-corruption official in the government, resigned as Permanent Secretary in the Office of the President in charge of Governance and Ethics. In a message to Kibaki, sent from London on Monday, Githongo said he was no longer able to carry out his duties. On Tuesday, the US ambassador to Kenya, William Bellamy, told a business meeting in Nairobi: "Corruption in Kenya isn’t a matter of ‘kitu kidogo’ [literally 'something small' in Kiswahili; a euphemism for 'bribe'], or of a few ministers skimming off commissions. It is big enough to cause macro-economic distortions." Bellamy said the US government would withhold US $2.5 million in aid to Kenya's anti-corruption campaign until it "could gain a clear picture of the government’s true intentions". Local NGOs and church leaders joined the fray, saying the government was not doing enough to fight corruption. Twenty NGO leaders called a news conference on Tuesday and insisted the government needed to come clean on allegations that some senior officials had been involved in corrupt acts. Several cabinet ministers, however, told reporters in this week that despite the attack by Clay and Githongo’s resignation, the will to contain corruption was still very strong within the government. Foreign Minister Ali Makwere told a news conference on Tuesday: "Our audit reports show clearly that we are fighting corruption […] the ambassador [Clay] seems to know more that what he is telling us. The corruption fight is ours, not his." Local Government Minister Musikari Kombo said the government would “not give up the fight”, while Labour Minister Newton Kulundu said those making allegations of corruption against unnamed government officials needed to provide evidence. On Saturday, Vice President Moody Awori had urged "some western envoys not to malign Kenya’s name". The current government came to power in 2003 after campaigning against corruption and other perceived ills. It appointed Githongo, who was working for the anti-corruption NGO, Transparency International, to head a new department in the presidential office that would advise Kibaki on how to fight corruption and declared “zero tolerance” for graft. However, in a report on global perceptions of corruption released in December, Transparency International ranked Kenya 122th out of 133 nations on a scale of least to most corrupt countries. It estimated that corruption could have cost Kenya up to $ 975 million in the last three years.
10 febbraio 2005	ANGOLA PRESS Kenya opens talks with Arab donors for investment February 8, 2005 The Kenyan government has opened talks with Arab donors on how to raise money for the 120 billion shillings (1.54 billion US dollars) needed for the country`s economic recovery plan, local media reported Tuesday. Opening the two-day meeting in Nairobi on Monday, Kenyan Finance Minister David Mwiraria said it would be not easy to implement the strategy without great help from other countries, including the Arab donors, according to the Daily Nation, one of the leading newspapers in Kenya. Representatives of OPEC, the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa and funding groups in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are attending the meeting and are expected to announce their pledges soon, the report said. The funding areas to be discussed are roads, rehabilitation of health facilities, water, irrigation programs, education and agriculture, it said. Statistics show that from the 1970`s Arab donors have provided Kenya with more than 18.4 billion shillings (235.9 million US dollars). And unlike other multilateral donors, Arab funding is free of conditions.
8 febbraio 2005	THE STANDARD Kenya's Debt Burden Grows to Sh700b February 6, 2005 Michael Omondi Economists blame corruption and profligacy in government. Emerging corruption and profligacy in government are driving Kenya's debt up, experts say. Subscribe to AllAfrica. The high debt levels, they argue, are likely to distract the performance of the economy. "Unchecked government expenditure is responsible for the huge debt," says Dr Samuel Nyandemo, a senior lecturer at the University of Nairobi. "And if the trend is not reversed, it will impact negatively on the socio-economic development of the country." Since coming to power in 2002, the Narc administration under President Kibaki has borrowed heavily to bridge the yawning budget deficit, resulting in a rapid rise in the national debt. By the end of November last year, Kenya's national debt stood at Sh710.3 billion, with external and domestic debt at Sh406.8 billion and Sh303.5 billion respectively. This marked a sharp rise in the two years Narc has been in power from the previous Sh530 billion. Government expenditure, especially procurement of goods, has been fraught with corruption, Nyandemo says, adding that a huge chunk of the debts have ended up lining the pockets of those in power, as well as their cronies. The government, Nyandemo observed, had failed to allocate the expensive loans to productive ventures and has, as a result, been forced to dig deeper into its coffers to service them. Consequently, the country has slid deeper into debt as repayments, which are about a third of the country's budget, now exceed new lending. In addition, the repayments are also more than the country spends on education and agriculture. "This is unacceptable," said Nyandemo. "It's sad to learn that a huge chunk of tax money, which could be invested in economic recovery projects, goes to servicing donor loans." As Kenya spends billions of shillings to offset its debts, it usually turns to donors for budgetary support who in most cases fail to live up to their pledges. The result has been a rise in domestic borrowing that has greatly interfered with the macro-economic policies that have kept inflation and interest rates fairly low. "The upward movement of interest rates as a result of domestic borrowing is not good for business," says Mr Hassan Abdi, a senior analyst at Old Mutual Asset Managers. "We are likely to see businesses that are operating on loans and banks going under because of the high default rate occasioned by the rise in lending rates." Abdi noted that borrowing excessively from the domestic market has squeezed the private sector out of the credit market to the detriment of the economy. He further noted that the government has a poor track record in allocating resources in ventures that would reap maximum benefits for the economy. The end result, Abdi says, is resources being pumped into unproductive public investments. The failure by the government to put expenditure in check has made it difficult for it to survive without donor support, irrespective of the conditionalities that may come with it. In this regard, Nyandemo noted, Kenya has been forced to accept loans with restrictive terms and conditions. "Donors give out loans but they make sure they (donors) are the major beneficiary." He added: "A case in point is the Sondu Mirui (hydroelectric power) project in western Kenya where the country has been forced to purchase materials and equipment as well as hire personnel from Japan even though they can be found at a cheaper rate elsewhere." Nyandemo noted that aid has turned out to be less effective as donors have expressly sought to further their foreign agenda at the expense of Kenya's domestic needs. This, he further noted, has only served to impoverish countries such as Kenya as most of their policies have to be sanctioned in Western capitals. The don explained that for Kenya to get out of the "donor dependency syndrome", it must install strong institutions and practise good governance. This will ensure prudent use of resources and translate into higher economic growth and development, he said. Previously, efforts by a section of MPs to introduce legislation that would set a ceiling on government borrowing came a cropper. However, Mr Robert Mathu, the chief executive officer of Francis Drummond and Company believes international credit is necessary for Kenya to meet its development goals. "We cannot develop without international capital," said Mathu, "but what we need is to access capital with no conditions attached to it." Mathu argued that the government should strive to get sovereign credit rating, a system that determines the ability of a country to meet its credit obligations. This, he noted, will put Kenya in a better position to access international funding that is not tied to any conditions.
7 febbraio 2005	THE STANDARD Looking west for salvation Saturday February 5, 2005 By Alex Chamwada Former South African President Nelson Mandela delivered what officials called a "fireside chat" over poverty in Africa to G8 finance ministers at a historic meeting in London last Friday. This was part of the campaign towards ending poverty, an initiative to urge industrialised nations to help Africa out of its current quagmire. Mandela, Nobel Peace Prize winner and African leader with an impeccable history of zeal and determination, had earlier addressed a mammoth crowd at the Trafalgar Square where he pointed out that 2005 offered a "unique opportunity" for Western countries to cancel debt and bring trade justice to the world’s poorest countries. He equated the fight against poverty to the fight against slavery – or his former task of fighting apartheid and leading South Africa to freedom. "Massive poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges of our times... that they have to rank alongside slavery and apartheid as social evils," he said. The rally was aimed at encouraging the public to commit to action on debt, aid and trade. Mandela’s visit to London couldn’t have come at a better time. The meeting of the G8 finance ministers was the first event in the group’s calendar since the UK took over its presidency. The onus is now on the African Union to seize the opportunity and put its case strategically. Mandela is, in the eyes of many, the best leader to represent Africa as the continent breaks new ground for partnership with the West. He epitomises commitment, endurance and respect, unlike many African leaders who mirror greed, corruption and mismanagement. But as Mandela makes his appeal on behalf of Africa, many harbour vexing questions regarding the fight against poverty. Will debt cancellation solve the problems of a continent that is reeling from years of corruption and mismanagement? Many argue that such a move can only be directly beneficial to the continent if the countries concerned get their priorities right. If African nations can prove that they can manage the resources at their disposal better, then the world can confidently talk of ending poverty. While there are some who talk of bringing Africa back to the right track, sceptics question whether the continent was ever on such a path. What will happen to nations like Kenya where the fight against corruption appears to have hit a dead end as a result of perceived reluctance by the government? Following the salvos fired by British High Commissioner Sir Edward Clay, whether justified or otherwise, will Western countries be willing to listen to Kenya in the near future? Are Western leaders guilty of belittling the efforts of African governments or are these administrations actually wanting? There are those who strongly believe that G8 countries hold all the answers to Africa’s poverty problems. They are optimistic that debt cancellation and increased aid will reduce the gap between the rich and the poor. The meeting in London came a month after UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown made a tour of African countries — including Kenya and S. Africa — where he emphasised the Labour government’s commitment to increasing its aid package to Africa. The UK has made Africa, along with climate change, a key priority of the G8 countries. The G8 includes the UK, the US, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Canada. However, the group will be hard put to examine claims that the west has contributed to Africa’s impoverishment by supplying weapons used in civil wars and imposing unfavourable trade policies on the continent. As the G8 countries aspire to elevate Africa, they must examine critically questions such as why, for instance, multinational banks impose higher charges on clients in developing countries than those in the West.
7 febbraio 2005	THE STANDARD Nairobi Water Company Receives Sh800m Credit February 5, 2005 Benson Kathuri The World Bank has approved Sh800 million to help Nairobi Water Company improve water supply to the city. The company said the grant would help strengthen its institutional base to effectively serve its customers. "The actual funds from the World Bank were availed in January and our company has already embarked on a massive, but multi-faceted, programme to improve our services," said Francis Mugo, the company's chief executive. Mugo said the company had met all conditions attached to the grant, key among them engagement of a new management team. The company is headed by former human rights activist-cum-politician, Kabando wa Kabando. The bank also urged the firm to establish credible financial policies, procedures and systems as well as conclude a tripartite agreement with the Nairobi City Council, which previously run the city water business. Sources reveal that the company that is barely one-year old has witnessed a phenomenon rise in revenue, with monthly cash inflows increasing to Sh150 million, up from Sh100 million. A progress report by the company says part of the money is payment of arrears collected from individuals and companies. However, the company admits that streamlining the billing system remains the greatest challenge and requires aggressive process to reduce the backlog in billing. The report, however, indicated that some workers brought onboard from NCC's water department are undermining reform efforts. "Currently the company is producing an average of 8,000 bills per day and will be billing customers on a monthly basis," said Mugo. However, a spot check by The Standard revealed that many parts of the city still experience water shortages that were a permanent feature under the former water managers. In the areas such as Kibera, South 'C' and Korogocho, water supply remains erratic and expensive to most consumers. "The company recognises that problems associated with supply of water need to be tackled from short, medium to long-term," said Mugo. "The company has successfully controlled the water discharge management from Thika Dam, which has resulted in the dam having a storage capacity of 92 per cent." Sources say the company has also established a patrol team to supervise and combat water theft in Ngethu-Nairobi and Sasumua-Nairobi water system. The initiative has helped curb water losses that has adversely affected supply to the city.
2 febbraio 2005	THE STANDARD Minister proposes change of city design Thursday February 3, 2005 By Noel Wandera National Planning and Development minister Prof Anyang Nyong’o wants the design of the country’s capital city, Nairobi, changed to enable it become a global city. Nyong’o said yesterday the provision of important services in Nairobi like banking, shopping and even leisure, was too chaotic to support the concept of a global city. Nyong’o said this concept ensures that competing cities offer similar if not better and affordable services to attract investors. "Nairobi must be able to offer, in a better way, services that Durban or Dar-es-Salaam offer. We can only do this if we are on the road to development," he said. He said the concentration of certain services in one area would reduce time wastage and cut down on costs. Consequently, he proposed that the whole of the City Centre east of Tom Mboya street should be left to private developers to turn into shopping malls and international hotels. "This section has been in the same condition for the last 40 years. That is not development," said Nyong’o. Upper Hill area should be a financial district while the administrative centre should move to Gigiri, he added. Said the minister: "This is a major decision that should be implemented within a time action plan." He submitted the proposal while opening an urban and regional planning workshop in Nairobi, whose theme was: "Making Kenya a Planning Society." Stakeholders are using the conference to generate and merge ideas to inform a Government paper on urban and regional planning as an instrument for wealth and employment creation. Nyong’o said Nairobi was challenged in many aspects, including provision of financial services, religion, information and technology and conference facilities. He said there might be need for the Government to reconfigure Bomas of Kenya and Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC) to host any type of conference. But the PS in the ministry, David Nalo, said the minister’s model could only be achieved if the Government harmonised all its planning laws in many ministries. "The Government needs to make a conscious decision to reconfigure its legislation to facilitate the minister’s suggestion," said Nalo. The three-day workshop is sponsored by the Kenya Institute of Public Policy Research Analysis (Kippra).
2 febbraio 2005	The East African Gordon Brown Spells Out UK's Plan to End Poverty in Africa Regional News Monday, January 31, 2005 By PAUL REDFERN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT BRITAIN’S CHANCELLOR of the Exchequer Gordon Brown has reacted to criticism – including in The EastAfrican (January 17-23, L. Muthoni Wanyeki, "Here's Mr Brown to Save Us! Once Again!") – that his visit to East Africa was yet another example of a Western politician making promises he can not deliver on. In a headline grabbing speech on January 26, Mr Brown, who visited Kenya and Tanzania earlier this month, said that increased UK aid and debt relief have already made a substantial difference across the region. The year 2005, Mr Brown added, is a vital year "not simply because British chairmanship of the G7 and G8 will lead us forward to the vitally important September UN Millennium Summit where we must discuss the progress, or lack of progress, in meeting the Millennium Development Goals, but also because it is the 20th anniversary of Live Aid, which saved millions of people when they were confronted by the reality of famine and death in Africa for the first time." Mr Brown said that following the Tsunami on Boxing Day, "Perhaps for the first time millions more people are understanding just how closely and irrevocably bound together are the fortunes of the richest persons in the richest country to the fate of the poorest persons in the poorest country of the world." "But it is not just enlightened self-interest that is encouraging people to be concerned about the needs of the needy and the suffering of the sick, but a moral sense that we all share that leads us to conclude that when some are poor, all are impoverished." Mr Brown wants a new deal for all developing countries that will address the underlying causes of poverty, illiteracy and disease. He says that he wants to push forward the Millennium goals not only for primary education but for secondary education as well. Citing his visit to Tanzania, Mr Brown said: "In Tanzania I saw 8, 9, 10 and 11 year old children begging to continue in school – but they were denied the chance because their parents could not pay the fees. In Kenya I saw children chanting free education – but secondary education is beyond their grasp. "Indeed, because the first millennium development target – gender equality for boys and girls in education – due to be met in 2005 – is not likely to be met, the UK will provide by 2008 over $1.96 billion for education with a particular focus on the education of girls. Our aim is that the 105 million children, including 60 million girls, who do not go to school today will be able to do so. "Africans know that it is often necessary to be patient but the whole world should now know that 150 years is too long to ask people to wait for justice. Justice promised will forever be justice denied until we remove from this generation the burden of debts incurred by past generations." Mr Brown says the first essential element of a 2005 development plan for a new deal is to take the final historic step in delivering full debt relief for the debt-burdened countries with a new agreement on multilateral debt relief that will enable billions to be re-allocated to education and health in the poorest countries. "Because of debt relief in Tanzania, 31,000 new classrooms have been built, 18,000 new teachers recruited and the goal of primary education for all will be achieved by the end of 2005. In Mozambique, half a million children are now being vaccinated against tetanus, whooping cough and diphtheria." Mr Brown has set out detailed proposals to use IMF gold to write off debt owed to the IMF and to ask World Bank shareholders to take over the debts owed by up to 70 of the poorest countries to them. Long term agreements have already been signed with Tanzania and Mozambique under which Britain will from now until 2015 take responsibility for 10 per cent of their World Bank debts. The offer will be made not just to the 37 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries but to all low-income countries, as long as they can ensure debt relief is used for poverty reduction. Britain is asking other countries to join in contributing in this way or to a World Bank trust fund. "Alongside more debt relief in 2005," Brown said, "a progressive approach to trade should be taken. We all know the damage that rich countries' protectionism has done to the poorest. Our proposals mean Europe and the richest countries must agree to open our markets, remove trade-distorting subsidies and in particular, do more to urgently tackle the scandal and waste of the Common Agricultural Policy. We must also amend the Rules of Origin requirements that have become a barrier to fair trade and agree on new simple ones co-ordinated across continents. Mr Brown called on the EU in its work on economic partnership agreements to take a non-mercantilist approach and put development first so that poor countries are able to sequence their trade reform within their poverty reduction strategies and participate on equal terms in the international economy. "Infrastructure is the key. Even today, for 12 African countries, less than 10 per cent of their roads are paved. While water and sanitation underpin health and development, even today 40 billion working hours in Africa each year are used up to collect water. And while tariff costs are often highlighted, it is actually transport costs that often constitute a bigger burden of the cost of exporting. With freight and insurance costs representing 15 per cent of the total value of African exports, it is difficult for them to be competitive," he said. Brown suggested that developing countries should be provided with the additional resources they need to build physical infrastructure such as roads, rail and electricity and to invest in human capital. He said Britain will support the proposals put forward by the Africa Commission on infrastructure. In particular, this will establish a fund to support infrastructure priorities; loan finance for small and medium-sized businesses and for micro-credit; a science and technology and tertiary education plan; and a plan for rural development, irrigation, research, encouragement of local markets, land reform and environmental improvement. Recognising the damage that corruption has done in Africa, Mr Brown said that at its very core, this economic development plan demands that rich and poor countries be fully transparent in their dealings. Mr Brown underscored the need for increased aid to Africa, which he said was $33 per person 10 years ago but today has fallen to $27. "While the Marshall Plan transferred 1 per cent of the richest country's national income to the poorest, our proposal is for each of the richest countries to reach 0.7 per cent of national income in long-term and predictable aid for investment." Mr Brown said the quickest, most effective way of guaranteeing long-term, stable, predictable funding is to create an International Finance Facility (IFF) that will generate $50 billion annually between now and 2015. The IFF will be founded upon long-term, binding donor commitments from the richest countries. "Our fourth objective made possible by the IFF is to provide the $6 billion more a year needed to fund free primary education to ensure the 105 million children denied schooling can learn with classrooms, teachers and books," Mr Brown said. Mr Brown said he hopes that the IFF will provide funds that will allow Britain to build healthcare systems to match the medical breakthroughs now being achieved in developing a preventive vaccine for malaria that could prevent the loss of more than 1 million lives a year and contain the HIV/Aids menace. "And because only $560 million a year is spent on research for a preventive HIV/Aids vaccine and because the challenge is to internationalise HIV/AIDS research, co-ordinating it worldwide, sharing information globally, more widely and more rapidly, with resources directed to the top scientific priorities, the G7 will – for the first time – on financing a worldwide infrastructure for sharing and co-ordinating research in Aids and then for encouraging the development of viable drugs, vaccines and other technologies such as microbiocides." Mr Brown's pledge on Britain's support for Africa was matched with money when Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged $63 million on January 27. The money will be used to provide insecticide treated mosquito nets for young children and pregnant women around the continent as part of a drive to combat malaria. Mr Blair announced this contribution at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
1 febbraio 2005	THE STANDARD World yet to win war against poverty Tuesday February 1, 2005 By Maore Ithula The global performance in the effort to fight hunger and poverty in developing countries is dismal, a report presented to the World Economic Forum has revealed. The Global Governance Initiative Annual Report for 2005 says efforts to tackle hunger scored a third mark on a scale of zero to ten. Efforts to diminish poverty earned a rating of four. This was revealed during a meeting in Davos, Switzerland, last Tuesday. The panel that assessed the global progress in the area was led by Sartaj Aziz, a former finance and foreign minister of Pakistan, and Joachim von Braun, the director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute. Actual achievements were compared to international goals that include, the reduction of the number of people suffering from hunger to half by 2015. The target was set by Heads of State at the World Food Summit in 1996. The global family is at pains to reduce the proportion of people with incomes of less than a dollar a day by 50 per cent before 2015. A score of zero would mean going backwards, one means stagnation, and ten would mean that the world is on course to reach the goals, the report reveals. If current trends continue, there will still be about 600 million hungry people in 2015. "To reach that goal, the current pace of reduction would need to be accelerated more than 12 times," the report further reveals. "Baring a paradigm shift," the report contends, "this scenario will not materialize."
31 gennaio 2005	UN News Service (New York) [www0.un.org/apps/news/region.asp?Region=AFRICA] Africa Will Get Help With Overwhelming Challenges of Urbanization - UN Agency January 28, 2005 The United Nations housing agency, the European Commission and several African governments have pledged to collaborate more in tackling the problems stemming from urban sprawl and largely unplanned cities in the continent. At a three-day regional workshop in Nairobi, Kenya, representatives of 16 African countries, the EC, the European Union's executive arm, and the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) agreed that the overwhelming challenges of rapid urbanization could only be addressed by partnerships. UN-HABITAT said Africa needed to develop sustainable human settlements that would include the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by protecting the environment, providing good infrastructure and promoting economic growth, social equity, poverty reduction and cultural and ethnic tolerance. "Africa now has the world's highest urbanization rates with an annual rate of urban growth of about 4 per cent - almost twice that of Latin America and Asia," it said. "Currently, 37 per cent of the total African population lives in cities, but the figure is expected to rise to 53 per cent by 2030." The participants said urgent help was needed with housing policy formulation, urban planning and management, environmental urban management, collecting and analyzing urban development indicators and statistics, participatory urban governance, decentralization and strengthening of local authorities, and housing and infrastructure finance. The problems that needed addressing also included post-disaster rehabilitation and reconstruction, urban safety, urban-rural linkages, safe water supplies, adequate sanitation, preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS and enhancing its treatment.
27 gennaio 2005	THE EAST AFRICAN The Poverty of Our Too Complex Strategy OPINION January 24, 2005 L. Muthoni Wanyeki * Another case of motion without movement? Being in a contrary, pessimistic mode regarding the goings-on within government right now, that is the question that came to mind with last week's launch of Kenya's plan of action on the Millennium Development Goals. With due respect to the Ministry of Planning, under whose ambit all of our (many) anti-poverty and economic growth plans fall, it is hard to take this new plan of action seriously. First, although not entirely this ministry's fault, this plan of action is only being launched now when Kenya committed itself to the Millennium Declaration and Plan of Action almost five years ago. Second, the Cabinet is clearly pulling in different directions on actions that would assist in achieving the MDGs. Witness the recent, embarrassing fiasco with respect to the Health Insurance Bill. Third, even more relevant to my current scepticism, some members of the Cabinet still think that they can operate as they did under the Kenyatta and Moi regimes and get away with it. Witness the recent, equally embarrassing fiasco regarding the tax exemption wrongly granted to a Cabinet minister by our Minister of Finance. That fiasco shows that our government still does not understand - or refuses to accept - the meaning of the term "conflict of interest." Codes of ethics and (secret) declarations of wealth are not, as yet, working. If they are not doing the necessary for our most highly ranked public officers, why should we expect them to do so for our less esteemed public officers? Our most highly ranked public officers are well paid, meaning that the temptation to be bad should be less rather than more. But it is not. If to yield to temptation has thus been proved to be a human flaw regardless of one's status in life, then we should proceed to handle that flaw the way we do all others. If the carrot is not working, we should proceed to the stick. So-where is the stick? Why has no one chastised the Cabinet minister for taking advantage of his position? Why has no one chastised our Minister for Finance for enabling him to do so. Moving on, in a desperate effort to be constructively critical (no small task)... There is much that could be said about the insufficiencies of the MDGs, given that they are, in effect, a pr cis of the numerous commitments made by governments through the decade of United Nations policy processes on everything from the environment and sustainable development, to reproductive and sexual health and rights, to social development and so on. But I do not want to go there. However, at this point, I want to go the institutional framework through which the Kenyan plan of action on the MDGs is to be pursued. The Poverty Commission, created following the UN Commission on Social Development under the Office of the President, has been reconstituted and placed under the Ministry of Planning. It is apparently to be the Ministry's "rapid response team" to its findings on inequalities of income, gender and region. Then we have the Economic and Social Council, intended to play an advisory role, regarding poverty and economic growth, to the ministry and the President. Then we have the ministry itself, responsible for planning around the Economic Recovery Strategy. And then we have the Ministry of Finance, which is meant to translate those plans into budgetary allocations consistent with them. That is a quagmire of people and plans to make sense of - presumably not only to us on the outside, but also to those on the inside. So how is this being done? And, given that the Ministry of Finance is still apparently irrevocably tied to the macroeconomic framework adopted prior to its Poverty Reduction Strategy process, so unceremoniously thrust aside in favour of the ERS, will fidgeting with budgetary allocations be sufficient - without corresponding, relevant shifts in monetary and fiscal policies - to make the differences we need to make. My feeling is that the answer to that question is "no." * L. Muthoni Wanyeki is the Executive Director of the African Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET)
27 gennaio 2005	THE STANDARD Developed world can do more for Third World Thursday January 27, 2005 By Andiwo Obondoh * Proposals announced by Gordon Brown, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, in Nairobi and Dar es Salaamduring his recent visit to East Africa, to invest $10 billion in education in Africa over the next 10 years and redress Africa’s debt burden, could change the lives of 40 million school children in sub Saharan Africa (UNESCO estimates), drastically reduce HIV infections and trigger faster economic growth. Of course this will not be enough to deliver on education for all goals (it would bring G8 support to education to about 1.5bn per year and total aid to education to about 2.5 or 3bn a year), and it is only a proposal at this stage not a concrete commitment. But it is a huge step forward and by far the biggest proposal on education financing that we have seen since Dakar World Education Forum of the year 2000. The fact that Brown is also pushing for cancellation of the unpayable debt of poor countries makes this scheme even more attractive. It should now be clear to the AU leaders and African governments that without a comprehensive and longer term International Financing Framework and full debt cancellation we are unlikely to see every African child in school before the middle of the next century. However, it is widely believed that the Blair administration will take advantage of their leadership of the EU and G8 this year to make this noble cause a top priority in aid allocations and development agenda for governments of the North. Other G8 countries need to move fast and support this New Year gift for Africa and top up the UK’s $10bn proposal in order to ensure quality education for all of the 120 million children in the developing world who do not attend school (Unesco estimates), and ensure their educational opportunities don’t end at primary level. The UK proposal for an additional US$1 billion per year in aid from G8 countries, supplemented by an extra $600 million from non-G8 donors, could help to underwrite Universal Primary Education (UPE) in 30 African countries which are "ready to go" with a sound set of policies for increasing access and improving learning outcomes. About 75 per cent of the costs of achieving quality primary education for all would come from the countries themselves. The 30 African countries were identified in a recent World Bank report as among the developing nations which stand poised to "fast track" universal education over the next couple of years if donors are willing to increase their investment. The total price tag for achieving UPE throughout the developing world is US$5.6bn a year – this is equivalent to about two days of global military spending.Africa Network Compaign on Education for All (Ancefa) estimates that at least $3.5bn of this would need to come from the G8 richest nations. Clearly, the G8 leaders can afford more than $1 billion a year; between 2000 and 2003, they spent nearly half that much on their summit jamborees each year. Media reports are more candid about this, the 2000 G8 summit in Okinawa cost $750 million while the Genoa summit cost $225 million; the Canadians spent $300 million at Kananaskis in 2002; the French later spent $600 million on the 2003 summit at Evian. The average price tag for a single G8 summit works out at an average of $479 million. If the G8 can spend such staggering sums on holding annual summits, why can’t they cancel Africa’s debt, invest much more in education of African children and fund the fight against Aids? Following Tanzania’s introduction of free and compulsory education in January 2002, 1.6 million children signed up to primary school for the first time. In 2003, 6.6 million children were in primary school, compared with 4.8 million in 2001. The targets for enrolment set out in Tanzania’s Poverty Reduction Strategy have been exceeded, with a Gross Enrolment Rate of over 100 per cent and a Net Enrolment Rate over nearly 90 per cent. Children are enrolling at a younger age, with more 7-year olds now entering school. On the other hand, in Kenya the introduction of Free Primary Education in 2003 increased the number of children in schools by over 1.7 million children. Due to lack of resources the Government of Kenya has not been able to expand its teaching force since 1998, despite the fact that 1.7 million more children are going to school now that fees have been lifted. On average HIPC countries in Africa still spend 15 per cent of their revenue on debt servicing. In 2002/3 for example, Tanzania spent $170 million on primary education and $100 million on debt service. In 1996, President Museveni of Uganda announced a policy of universal primary education, abolishing user fees for up to four children from each family (two of whom should be girls), and all orphans. This led to more than a 70 per cent increase in total enrolment overnight, from 3.1 million to 5.3 million. The share of education in the budget rose from 22per cent in 1995 to 31 per cent in 1999. On the other hand, debt relief enabled Tanzania to fund the abolition of user fees. Tanzania abolished user fess in 2001, leading to a massive increase of 50 per cent in primary enrolment in one year. Debt relief provided the predictable financing which enabled Tanzania to implement a long term plan for universal primary education. Tanzania is now on track to get every child into primary school by 2006 – achieving the Millennium Development Goal for gender equity in primary education and meeting the universal primary education goal 9 years earlier. Kenya also abolished user fees in 2003, leading to a significant increase in enrolment. In 2003 there were an additional 1.2 million who had previously dropped out or never enrolled, taking the total enrolment to about 7.2 million in 2004 and a predicted 7.6 million in 2008. Other countries, such as Ethiopia, have now also developed universal primary education strategies, but lack the funds to fully implement them. Fee abolition alone can bring large numbers of children into school, but it cannot keep them there – it must be part of a broad government commitment to achieving universal primary enrolment, with complementary measures such as teacher recruitment and training and provision of teaching and learning materials. This is why it is important that the abolition of user fees is accompanied by a deeper commitment to fund quality education provision to dramatically increased numbers of students. *The writer is the campaign coordinator, Africa Network Campaign on Education for All (East Africa)
25 gennaio 2005	THE STANDARD Donors give Sh9b for reforms in primary education Tuesday January 25, 2005 By Ken Ramani The Ministry of Education got a vital shot in the arm yesterday from the donor community for education reforms for the next five years. Britain’s Department for International Development announced a grant of Sh5.07 billion, while the World Bank pledged Sh4 billion. The bank also said it would grant Kenya Sh80 million to help construct more classrooms. The project targets slum areas as well as arid and semi-arid (Asals) schools. The announcement was made during the opening of a two-week workshop to discuss a policy document on Kenya Sector-wide Support Programme (KSSP). The document contains recommendations on reforms that will run between 2005 and 2010. The reforms in the sector are meant to improve quality and relevance of teaching, learning and research in universities and technical training colleges. It emerged that Kenya was planning to spend Sh15 billion on the five-year-long project yet the total amount required is Sh90 billion. Education minister Prof George Saitoti, who opened the event, admitted that the free primary programme was threatening the Government’s efforts to increase transition rate to secondary schools from the current 50 to 70 per cent by 2008. Saitoti also disclosed that a report on teacher utilisation had been completed and his officers were carefully studying it before effecting transfers. "The issue of teacher balancing is very sensitive. The ministry will take utmost care not to destroy families through transfers of couples," Saitoti assured teachers who could be affected during the exercise. He said the transfers have already started in Murang’a and Nyandarua districts and would be completed by the end of March across the country. Saitoti ruled out the possibility of employing more teachers due to lack of resources. "We are currently allowed by Treasury to employ 235,000 teachers. There are no resources to hire more teachers although there could be genuine demand in certain areas," explained Saitoti. Others who attended included Education Assistant minister Beth Mugo, PS Prof Karega Mutahi, TSC Secretary Gabriel Longoibon, KIE Director Lydia Nzomo, among other senior ministry officials.
25 gennaio 2005	THE STANDARD World Bank pledges Sh6b for Kenya Tuesday January 25, 2005 By John Oyuke The World Bank has pledged Sh5.85 billion (US$75m) support towards Kenya’s Economic Recovery Strategy (ERS). The funds to be made available under the World Bank’s Economic Recovery Strategy Support Credit (ERSSC) facility is earmarked for release after approval by the bank’s board in September. The bank’s senior economist and team leader, Praveen Kumar, said the funding is crucial to Kenya’s economic recovery and will help supplement internally generated cash set aside towards this initiative. "External concessional assistance is likely to be a significant source of funding for scaling up the implementation of the ERS," he said. However, Kumar said given Kenya’s disappointing track record of structural adjustment operations, it must first meet certain requirements before the funds are released. The bank has so far pledged to disburse a total of US$75 million for budgetary support to Kenya that has already been approved. The new credit whose appraisal authorisation date has been set for April 7, 2005 has three components— budgetary and financial management, rural development and improvement of private sector competitiveness. The budgetary component will finance the restructuring of public expenditure and strengthen governance in financial management. The rural development component will support government efforts designed to increase agricultural productivity and ensuring food security. The new funds that target rural development are tied to reforms in coffee, pyrethrum the co-operative sectors. The World Bank says though coffee has traditionally been a key export crop, Kenya appears to have lost dominance it earlier enjoyed in the world market. Main issues identified by the bank as key to improving its performance include increase in the efficiency of marketing and providing farmers with better incentives and institutional support. The bank identified pyrethrum production as another area where Kenya has traditionally held a dominant export position yet the sector is struggling to survive. The bank is optimistic that the sector has a good potential to reclaim its top position after implementation of the reforms. Under the third component, the credit would support privatisation of Kenya Power and Lighting (KPLC) and facilitate divestiture of the remaining state owned banks. It will also cover privatisation of Telkom Kenya and Kenya Railway.
24 gennaio 2005	Inter Press Service (Johannesburg) [www.ipsnews.net/africa/] Development: Microcredit a 'Practical' Way to Fight Poverty January 21, 2005 María Vega – Rome Of the wide range of strategies identified for combating world poverty, the promotion of microcredits -- and other forms of financing for people with limited resources in developing countries -- has proven to be a highly effective tool, say experts from international agencies. In fact, the success of these initiatives has led the United Nations to designate 2005 as the International Year of Microcredit. "Microcredits are one of the most effective ways to fight poverty, and represent a tool that could contribute significantly to achieving the Millennium Development Goals," said Lennart Bage, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialised U.N. agency. Bage spoke with IPS at the presentation of the Millennium Project report, "Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals", earlier this week in Rome, where IFAD is based. Microcredit programmes can play an extremely important role in development strategies because they give small farmers and traders the possibility of increasing their earnings and improving their standard of living through the creation of small businesses, he said. Bage cited the example of Egypt, where the establishment of "microenterprises" in the agricultural sector has led to encouraging results: "Crop production has increased by as much as 100 percent in some cases, in addition to other benefits." There have been similarly successful experiences in Latin America, particularly in Argentina, Mexico, Peru and Bolivia, where 80 percent of the microcredit-funded initiatives are led by women. Nevertheless, Bage pointed out, 70 percent of the world's poor still lack access to credit, savings and money transfer services, which are essential elements for the creation and management of small businesses. IFAD has joined with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) -- two other Rome-based U.N. agencies -- in stating that it will be possible to achieve the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the established deadline of 2015 "if the developing and industrialised countries take action immediately" by implementing plans and projects, in which microcredit could play a major role. The eight MDGs, adopted in the year 2000 by the 189 U.N. member countries at the time, encompass specific targets such as achieving universal primary education and halving the proportion of the world's population suffering extreme poverty (those who earn less than one dollar a day), hunger, and lack sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation -- all by the year 2015. The goals also include promoting gender equality and empowering women, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, and ensuring environmental sustainability. The three Rome-based U.N. agencies are optimistic about reaching these objectives within the established timeline, although current statistics on world poverty would seem to indicate otherwise. One in every five people in the world today lives in extreme poverty, which translates into roughly 1.2 billion human beings. Over 850 million suffer from chronic hunger, close to 11 million children die every year from preventable diseases such as malaria, diarrhoea and pneumonia, 114 million children have no access to schooling, and 584 million women are illiterate. One-third of the world's poor live in rural areas and depend primarily on agriculture, a sector in which official development assistance (ODA) has been steadily declining since 1988. Today, only eight percent of this aid goes to rural development. IFAD, FAO and WFP concur that "the leaders of the poorest countries must take the necessary steps to ensure good government and solid economic planning," while the international community should take on strategies that will support them. Pedro Sánchez, who presented the Millennium Project report in Rome, told IPS that in order to effectively combat poverty, there has to be a change in attitude on the part of leaders, governments and the international community, one that leads to concrete actions. "We have to be realistic and confront the countries and leaders who opt to perpetuate poverty for political purposes. We must act to genuinely help those who live in a never-ending 'tsunami' of hunger, poverty and disease, like the countries of sub-Saharan Africa," said Sánchez, director of tropical agriculture at the Earth Institute of Columbia University, in New York. According to Sánchez, everyone knows, in theory, what the most effective strategies for fighting poverty should be, but what is needed now is "greater political will and more commitment." An essential element, he noted, is to stop forcing developing countries to become victims of the "loan business" when they should really be receiving donations. "Many countries pay five times more on debt servicing than what they are given in development aid," said Sánchez, pointing to the example of Kenya, where 56 percent of its 31 million inhabitants live on less than a dollar a day. Kenya receives around 100 million dollars annually in foreign aid, but spends roughly 500 million on paying off its foreign debt. "And we continue to increase that debt through more loans," he added. The three Rome-based U.N. agencies are convinced that the goals set for 2015 can be fulfilled if effective strategies are adopted to reduce hunger and poverty, including initiatives aimed at political reforms, investment, increased productivity, and the creation of service and financial institutions for rural areas. In order to promote thriving economies with sustainable long-term growth, where people can successfully fulfil their own needs, it is essential to provide access to employment, education, water, credits, and other basic needs, according to the agencies. It has been estimated that the Millennium Development Goals could be met by 2015 with an annual investment of 100 billion dollars, but only half that amount is currently devoted to this objective.
21 gennaio 2005	THE DAILY NATION Kenya role in implementing MDGs COMMENTARY Dr Juma * Publication Date: 1/21/2005 We have witnessed a landmark event in the history of development thought and practice, the launching of "Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals". The report was prepared for the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan by the UN Millennium Project, an independent advisory body composed of 256 experts and practitioners led by Prof Jeffrey Sachs. The UN Millennium Project’s report was released as the Asian tsunami disaster focused global attention on the need, scale and effectiveness of aid to the world’s poor. The enormously generous response to the tragedy sent a powerful message that ordinary citizens in wealthier nations do in fact support such aid – if they clearly see the need and if they believe the funds they provide will reach and help the people in need. The Project’s plan addresses these legitimate concerns – and shows that targeted investments in essential public services such as health, education and infrastructure make poor communities less vulnerable to such disasters, and to the hardships of disease, hunger and environmental degradation. The report is a courageous effort to outline practical measures for implementing the Millennium Declaration adopted by the United Nations in 2000. It represents the most comprehensive effort to address poverty and economic growth in the developing world ever mounted by the international community. The report focuses on the unprecedented opportunity to improve the lives of billions of people around the world by adopting practical approaches to meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It identifies practical strategies to eradicate poverty by scaling up investments in infrastructure and human capital while promoting gender equality and environmental sustainability. It is a landmark report that will redefine development thought and practice for a long time to come. The report is an illustration of the exemplary leadership by the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in focusing global political attention on poverty and economic growth. It emphasises that the MDGs are within reach, even for the poorest of countries. But to do so will demand aggressive local, national, regional and international strategies. These strategies will require enhanced co-operation between developing and developing countries in all aspects of development planning, financing and implementation. But such co-operation will only bear fruit where developing countries take leadership and ownership on the implementation of the MDGs. One of the key recommendations of the report is the urgency to identify "quick wins" or areas of immediate action. Such "quick wins" will not only underscore the feasibility of the goals, but they will also provide strategic entry points for subsequent scaling up. The most strategic "quick win" for Kenya is the creation of the East African Community (EAC) and the return of peace in the Sudan as well as the reconstruction of government in Somalia. The creation of an integrated regional market is a unique opportunity that can help Kenya and the region address long-term development challenges as foreshadowed by the MDGs. Policy emphasis in the region should be on improving productivity, expanding markets, attracting foreign investment and adopting new technologies. These are the kinds of economic measures needed to address poverty. The first step in taking advantage of regional opportunities is to invest in infrastructure development (energy, transportation, telecommunications, research and development, water supply and sanitation) which will not only facilitate trade, but the construction and maintenance of infrastructure will generate new job and promote human welfare. Such investments should be linked to the local universities and research institutions. Building new roads using local materials such as cement, for example, should be tied into efforts to enhance the region’s civil engineering skills in universities. Education is another critical starting point. Significant advances have already been made through the provision of free education. In addition to the emphasis on primary education, Kenya should also provide leadership in bringing higher education to the service of development. The network of universities in Kenya and the region can play an important role if they focus their curriculum on community development. This is the most strategic way to move Kenya and the region into the knowledge-economy. The report leads off a year-long series of global initiatives aimed at making the Goals a reality, including a report to UN member states from the Secretary-General in March, which will draw heavily on the Project’s recommendations. With world leaders gathering at the G8 meeting in July and again at the UN in September to accelerate progress towards the Goals, 2005 has become the key year for mobilising international support for the fight against poverty and disease. Kenya must take advantage of these opportunities to focus political and professional attention on the urgency to promote economic growth and eliminate poverty. The outlook for the region is promising and the goals are attainable. But seizing immediate leadership is the most critical step that Kenya must make now. Investing in Development thus offers Kenya a rich source of ideas that could enable the country to serve as a regional champion in poverty eradication and economic development. With this the region can make important contributions to global security, peace and prosperity. *Dr Juma is co-cordinator of the United Nations Millennium Project’s Task Force on Science, Technology and Innovation, and a professor of the Practice of International Development at Kennedy School’s Harvard University.
20 gennaio 2005	Inter Press Service (Johannesburg) [www.ipsnews.net/africa/] “Drastic Actions” Required for UN Goals to Be Met 18/01/2005 Joyce Mulama NAIROBI, Jan 18 (IPS) - While a decade may seem a substantial amount of time to some, it is all too short for those who are pushing to have the Millennium Development Goals realised. The prospects for achieving the goals (or MDGs) appear especially bleak for sub-Saharan Africa, Kenya being a case in point. "Unless drastic actions are taken, Kenya is unlikely to achieve to the Millennium Development Goals by 2015," the country’s minister of health, Charity Ngilu, said Tuesday at the Nairobi release of a report entitled ‘Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals’. (The principal launch of this document took place Monday in New York.) The 3,000-page report was compiled under the auspices of the United Nations Millennium Project, established by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to set out a strategy for reaching the MDGs. The eight goals were formulated during the UN’s Millennium Summit in 2000 in a bid to improve living standards around the globe by 2015. They include halving the number of people who are living on less than a dollar a day and reducing global hunger by half (more than one billion of the six billion people on earth currently live below the poverty threshold). The goals also call for the promotion of equality between men and women by rooting out gender disparities in education, universal primary education, a two thirds reduction of mortality amongst children under five – and a reduction by three quarters of maternal mortality. In addition, the spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases is to be reversed, environmental sustainability ensured – and the development of poor countries addressed through fair policies on trade and debt, amongst other matters. Child mortality in Kenya currently stands at 114 deaths per 1,000 births, and maternal mortality at 414 deaths per 100,000 births. Ngilu has sought to remedy this situation by shepherding a bill through parliament that would provide free health care to Kenyans through the introduction of a national insurance scheme. President Mwai Kibaki later refused to sign off on the bill, which critics say would prove too burdensome for tax payers. However, Planning and National Development Minister Anyang Nyong’o was quoted earlier this month as saying the bill had not been shelved, and that a revised version of the scheme would be ready for implementation by March. In addition, the health plan reportedly received the endorsement of Jeffrey Sachs, the American university professor who directs the Millennium Project – this during a visit to Kenya that took place over the weekend of Jan. 8-9. Others have also called for Kenyan authorities to take decisive action against poverty and under-development in the coming months. "The year 2005 needs to be a year of action as opposed to a year of politics, a year in which government business is done for the poor in order for things to move forward," Paul Andre de la Porte, the UN’s resident coordinator in Kenya, said Tuesday. ‘Investing in Development’ sets out 10 recommendations to assist the international community in achieving the MDGs, notably that aid to poor countries be substantially increased. While the UN General Assembly agreed in 1970 that countries should set aside 0.7 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) for development assistance, only five have done so: Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. Britain, Belgium, France, Finland, Ireland and Spain have promised to reach this target. The United States, with the world’s biggest economy, is also its biggest donor at present. However, this assistance amounts to just 0.15 percent of GDP, far below the target of 0.7 percent. The report recommends that wealthy countries open their markets to developing states, many of which have been severely disadvantaged by the subsidies paid to farmers in rich nations. Poor states should be helped to build the roads, ports and electricity infrastructure that are central to improving competitiveness. ‘Investing in Development’ also proposes a number of "Quick Win actions" to "save and improve millions of lives and…promote economic growth". These include the widespread and free distribution of malaria bed-nets, eliminating primary school fees and increasing the provision of free school meals. The recommendations note, furthermore, that governments need to "adopt development strategies bold enough to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets for 2015." Kenya’s government says that its ‘Economic Recovery Strategy for Wealth and Employment Creation’, launched in 2003, goes part of the way to identifying areas that officials need to focus on to achieve development. According to government statistics, about 56 percent of Kenyans currently live on less than a dollar a day.
20 gennaio 2005	THE STANDARD There’s only one goal Editorial Thursday January 20, 2005 Vice-President Moody Awori on Tuesday launched Kenya’s National Millennium Development Goals and let it be known that they could not be achieved without external funding. In the V-P’s own words, "a casual look at the Needs Assessment Report reveals that a huge amount of resources above what the country can raise is required" to meet these goals. What are Kenya’s Millennium Development Goals? They are the same ones which the United Nations 191 member-states have pledged to have implemented by the year 2015; viz: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal free primary education; promote gender equality; improve maternal health; reduce child mortality; combat HIV/Aids, TB and malaria; ensure environmental stability, and develop partnership for global development. That 2015 is a decade away may lead some into believing that there is plenty of time within which Kenya and the world’s poorest countries can meet these eight goals. But the reality, as Awori has pointed out, is that Kenya and the developing world need a lot of money to, for example, fund free education and combat poverty and disease. The reality is that Kenya will not meet these goals because it is stricken by poverty. That is to say that all these goals can be achieved if Kenya were to rid itself of poverty. But how successful, so far, is Kenya’s poverty reduction programme and does the injection of foreign funds guarantee success in the fight against poverty? For Kenya there is only one millennium goal – eradicate poverty and all else will follow.
20 gennaio 2005	THE DAILY NATION Growth goals are attainable EDITORIALS Publication Date: 1/20/2005 Five years ago, world leaders meeting under the auspices of the United Nations Millennium Summit came up with a set of goals to eliminate poverty, ignorance, disease and other human afflictions by 2015. Specifically, the summit came up with eight targets that have now become popularly known as Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including reducing poverty by half by 2015, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and eliminating maternal mortality. Others are reducing child mortality, reversing the spread of HIV/Aids, malaria and tuberculosis, eliminating environmental degradation and developing global partnership for development. For Kenya and other developing countries, these targets remain mere statements of intent - and the Government has now openly admitted that. Speaking at the launch of the MDG Project report on Tuesday in Nairobi, two Cabinet ministers - Peter Anyang' Nyong'o and Charity Ngilu - categorically stated that most of the goals will remain a mirage given the prevailing economic conditions. This is not news. We know, for example, that we do not have the resources to provide quality healthcare for all. We know child and maternal mortality are on the rise in the country due to severe resource scarcity. Matters have been made worse by the HIV/Aids scourge which not only erodes gains made but practically makes economic planning impractical. While we cannot pretend that we can surmount the challenges that hamper the realisation of the MDGs, we should not just throw our hands up and say we are defeated. The purpose of having the goals is to inspire countries to aspire for greater goals and most importantly, to guarantee the enjoyment of basic human rights. In other words, MDGs are not abstractions but the basic things that any nation has to provide to citizens. What is critical in realising the MDG goals is political will - which is lacking in many countries, Kenya included. Instead of despairing, the Government should get down to work and put in systems that will help us realise these goals.
19 gennaio 2005	THE DAILY NATION Growth targets can't be met, says Nyong'o NEWS Story by JEFF OTIENO Publication Date: 1/19/2005 The Government has conceded it might not meet all the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. The goals are eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, improving maternal health and reducing child mortality. Planning minister Peter Anyang' Nyong'o yesterday said the first progress report produced in 2003 had revealed that Kenya might not meet most of the the 2015 targets. Health minister Charity Ngilu also concedes that unless drastic action is taken, Kenya is unlikely to achieve the goals in the next 10 years. The two Cabinet ministers spoke at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre where the United Nations Millennium Project report was launched. Mrs Ngilu's remarks came after the donor community painted a bleak picture of many African countries, including Kenya. Mr Simon Bland, the head of the Department for International Development, said the trends in meeting the goals aimed at improving the world's standard of living were "going the wrong way." He said: "Without change designed to speed up the process, it is not possible for Africa to meet the MDGs." Though Kenya was on the right track, the official said, the country could meet a chunk of the MDGs only in 2130. The two goals that won praise were provision of free primary education and combating Aids. The DfiD official said Kenyans were getting poorer by the day and maternal and infant mortality was increasing every year. "Though Kenya is better placed than many African countries, the trend is going the wrong way on poverty reduction and on infant and maternal mortality," said Mr Bland. His opinion was supported by Mr Derek Fee, head of European Union-Global Partnership, who said the Government must speed up the implementation process. Mr Fee and World Bank country representative Makhtar Diop told the participants that the donor community was ready to support Kenya so long as the Government "fast-tracks" implementation. Mr Diop said more reforms were needed in the civil service and agriculture to spur economic growth and create more employment opportunities. The United Nations Development Programme's resident representative, Mr Paul Andr de la Porte, urged the Government to reduce politicking and get down to work. "Let 2005 be a year of action, where the Government works for the poor, and we must make a radical departure from business as usual," said Mr de la Porte. Vice-President Moody Awori urged the development partners to increase financial aid to enable the country to meet its goals. Mr Awori said developed countries must live up to their promise of raising their official development assistance to developing countries to the tune of 0.7 per cent of their gross national incomes. The V-P said that implementation of the Economic Recovery Strategy Paper would help meet some of the goals.
18 gennaio 2005	THE DAILY NATION World Bank report warns of 'hurdles' to anti-poverty effort BUSINESS WEEK Story by KABURU MUGAMBI Publication Date: 1/18/2005 Even as the Government launched the Poverty Eradication Commission last week, a new joint report by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund released on Wednesday says anti-poverty efforts face serious implementation hurdles. During the launch in Nairobi, presided over by Planning and National Development minister Anyang' Nyong'o, Health minister Charity Ngilu admitted that the Government was not doing enough to ensure fair allocation of the country's resources to improve living standards. She said: "When we have some people driving these huge Mercedes [Benz] cars, when women are dying in hospitals because of the lack of basic equipment, then something is wrong. We must do something." The joint report evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of Kenya's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper submitted to the Fund and World Bank by the Government. After studying the PRSP, the joint staffs then consider whether it (PRSP) provides a sound basis for concessional assistance from the bank and the fund, as well as for debt relief under the Enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) debt initiative. However, staff from the bank and Fund say the successful implementation of the Investment Programme for the Economic Recovery Strategy for Wealth Creation (IP-ERS) faces three major risks. First, capacity for implementation and coordination within the Government needs to be significantly strengthened. Difficulties in producing a final IP-ERS document, and weaknesses in that document, largely reflect capacity constraints, the report says. The IP-ERS specifies a number of measures for strengthening capacity, including establishing an IP-ERS steering committee comprising all permanent secretaries and the Kenya Government-Donor Coordination Group. These measures will help, but the joint staff say more must be done to strengthen institutions, including improving incentives for performance. The World Bank, IMF, and other development partners, who are already providing substantial support for capacity building in their respective areas of expertise, are ready to deepen their support for the implementation of the IP-ERS. The second major risk is that a political consensus behind difficult reforms, such as the privatisation of parastatals and civil service reform, may take longer to build, thereby delaying the reforms that are needed to reduce poverty. The report says that building a consensus requires not only a good technical understanding of how policies affect growth and poverty, but also an effective communications strategy to enlist support for reforms among stakeholders and specific measures to address the concerns of potential losers from reforms. The third major risk is the vulnerability of the Kenyan economy to external shocks, including terms of trade shifts (particularly in coffee and tea), security-related events, severe weather, and shortfalls in donor inflows. Further diversifying the economy will help reduce vulnerability to external shocks. Nevertheless, the World Bank, IMF and other development partners are ready to help the Government identify and implement measures to mitigate and better manage risks. However, development partners echo the concerns of the World Bank and the Fund regarding weaknesses in the presentation of some important policy reforms in the fiscal, financial, and parastatals. They call for a deeper analysis of the dynamics of poverty and inequality and their links to various economic growth paths and policy alternatives. Some also recommend that the Government explicitly address issues of inequality and identify measures to reduce it. The development partners encourage the government to demonstrate its commitment to pro-poor spending in its forthcoming budget and to set specific, time-bound targets for improvements in public financial management. Of great importance is to translate the priorities of the IP-ERS into the medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF) and the budget. The partners support the call for developing strategies for health and education that identify programmes and policies to hasten progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals. They agree with the government on the importance for growth of attracting private sector investment, and recommend that the government develop a concrete programme to achieve this objective. There are eight MDGs approved by 189 nations in 2000, the first of which is to reduce the 1990 poverty rate by 2015. On the monitoring and evaluation framework, they agree that specification of a set of core indicators (linked to the MDGs where appropriate) and annual targets is important, in order to facilitate the annual review of the economic recovery strategy, and an eventual move to budget support by interested donors. The report concludes that the IP-ERS document provides a sound basis for World Bank and Fund concessional assistance.
18 gennaio 2005	THE STANDARD MF, World Bank come under heavy criticism Tuesday January 18, 2005 Business International aid flow structures need to be reformed for the world to realise the Millennium Development Goals, United Nations says. In a report titled Investing in Development: "A practical Plan to achieve the Millennium Development Goals," that is being launched today, UN says the system in its current form is not coherent with the MDG approach to poverty reduction. While appreciating the role of the Bretton Woods institutions in global policy making, the UN urges the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to get involved the design and implementation MDG-based poverty reduction strategies in low income countries." The Millennium Project blueprint makes a stinging criticism of the Bretton Woods institutions saying they have in the past implemented programmes that undermined the achievement of the MDGs. "International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme design has paid almost no systematic attention to the goals when considering a country’s budget or macroeconomic framework," the report says. "In the vast number of country programmes supported by the IMF since the adoption of the goals, there has been almost no discussion about whether the plans are consistent with achieving them," the UN says. In its country-level advisory work, the UN Millennium Project says that it also found out that multi-lateral and bilateral institutions have not encouraged the (recipient) countries to adopt the Millennium Development Goals as operational objectives. It also found out that many low-income countries have plans to scale up their sector strategies but could not implement them due to budget constraints. "In other cases, countries are advised not to even to consider such scaled-up plans," the MDG blueprint says. There is also a need to promote good governance in countries that are receiving aid. Better governance depends on the systems that checks MDG-based strategies for their national commitments to human rights principles," the UN says.
17 gennaio 2005	IRIN [www.irinnews.org] KENYA: British finance minister urges rich nations to help Africa NAIROBI, 13 Jan 2005 (IRIN) - The British chancellor of the exchequer, Gordon Brown, urged the developed world on Wednesday to help Africa lift itself out of poverty, saying rich countries should support a plan through which resources could be channelled to the world's poorest continent. "It is simply not acceptable in the modern age for the rest of the world to stand by and have hundreds of millions of children not getting the chance at [an] education," Brown said when he visited a primary school in the sprawling Kibera slum in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, at the start of a week-long visit to Africa. Kenya introduced free primary education in January 2003, a move that saw the number of children enrolled in primary schools rise from 5.9 million to 7.2 million, according to education ministry figures. The country's population is estimated at about 30 million, of whom 8.7 million are children aged six to 13. Brown praised Kenya's decision to provide free primary schooling, saying education would be a crucial component of Britain's plan to have rich nations contribute more of their resources to projects that could alleviate poverty in Africa. "It is surely for $10 billion a year, one of the best investments we could ever make both for security reasons and social, educational and economic reasons to give every child the chance at primary education," Brown said. Brown has said that Britain's proposal on ending problems of underdevelopment in Africa could be modelled on a scheme named for former US secretary of state, Gen George C. Marshall, whose plan on the provision of development aid helped Europe's economies rise from the ruins of the World War II. Answering a question, Brown said Britain's proposals on poverty alleviation in Africa include the question of debt relief. "We are going to put forward very practical proposals - one is about debt relief, where we want to have a 100 percent multilateral debt relief for those countries that are HIPC [Highly Indebted Poor Countries] countries," said Brown. "But we have an additional proposal for countries that meet the criteria for countries that have to meet the criteria that are not HIPC countries - that they too would have a 100 percent multilateral debt relief under certain circumstances and we will be discussing this at the meeting of finance ministers of the G7 at the beginning of February," he added. Kenya does not fall under the HIPC category. The British finance minister also met Kenyan President, Mwai Kibaki, and last year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Wangari Maathai, the assistant environment minister. Maathai said Brown's visit was a sign of Britain's commitment to helping African countries trying to promote sustainable development. Brown will also visit Tanzania and Mozambique before going to Cape Town, South Africa, for a meeting on 17 January of the Commission for Africa, a committee formed by Britain's prime minister last year to help bring about development in the continent. [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations - © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2005 ]
13 gennaio 2005	THE DAILY NATION UK to donate cash for free education, says Brown Publication Date: 01/13/2005 NEWS Story by JULIUS BOSIRE and PPS British Treasury chief Gordon Brown yesterday praised the free primary education policy and said his Government would spend part of its financial support to Kenya on the programme. Mr Brown had visited Kibera's Olympic primary school where he witnessed the impact of the policy. The largest part of Britain’s Sh2.8 billion (US$35 million) annual aid to Kenya funds education. The rest of the money goes to programmes aimed at improving medical care, the environment and the livelihoods of poor people in rural areas. Mr Brown said Britain had prioritised the improvement of living standards in Africa during its presidency of the G-8 and European Union this year. "I am here to listen and learn about what the Government has put in place for the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals," Mr Brown said. Later in the day, he planted a Neem (Muarubaini) tree at Uhuru Park's Freedom Corner, where Nobel peace laureate, Prof Wangari Maathai, and other officials received him. And while addressing a Press conference at Hotel Inter-Continental, Mr Brown said he hoped to use his visit to renew calls for debt relief for the world’s poorest countries, fairer trade and substantive increase in aid. At a meeting with President Kibaki at State House Nairobi, Mr Brown said the UK would increase its annual development assistance to Kenya from the current Sh5.4 billion (£37 million) to Sh7.3 billion (£50 million). Part of the money will be used to fund free primary education. Mr Brown said the UK was impressed by the reforms Narc was implementing since it came to power, to which the President responded: "We began the free primary education programme because we know the time to educate our children is now. He said the programme had enabled many children to acquire education, particularly in arid and semi-arid districts where enrolment used to be low. Brown has called for half a trillion dollars in new aid for poor nations over the next 10 years – likening the initiative to the US Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe after World War II. He is urging other countries to back his proposal for an International Finance Facility through which donors from richer nations would raise funds on the international markets. The UK Government has put forward its proposal for stable, predictable, long-term funds front-loaded to tackle problems of poverty, disease and illiteracy through an International Finance Facility. In his speech on January 6, at the National Gallery of Scotland Mr Brown said: "It is because I want a world that does not have to choose between emergency disaster relief and addressing the underlying causes of poverty and injustice - between advancing first aid and advancing fundamental change - that the proposals I am putting forward today to advance the interests of all the developing world will - the Government believes - find support in all parts of the world". World leaders will first gather in Scotland in September at the United Nation’s Millennium Summit to examine how much they could do together if they were to seriously address the scale of poverty round the world. Five years ago in a historic declaration, the world signed up to a shared commitment that by 2015 every child would be at school, avoidable infant deaths would be prevented, and a commitment that poverty would be halfed by the year.
10 gennaio 2005	THE DAILY NATION Is Kibaki a leader for the rich? Story by SUNDAY NATION Team Publication Date: 1/9/2005 NEWS Is President Kibaki in touch with the man on the street? Does he know his needs and aspirations, and is he accessible to all? Is he a leader for the rich? These are some of the questions which have frequently been raised by his critics, with some saying he is elitist and not easily accessible. A New Year poll by the Nation shows that life under the Kibaki Administration over the past two years has been either worse or the same as under the Nyayo regime. The survey reveals a trail of dashed hopes because of poverty, unemployment, security and corruption. Another report, compiled jointly by the Society for International Development (SID) and the Ministry of Planning, speaks volumes about the government’s failure to check rising poverty. It paints a picture of a country in which a few wealthy people are becoming wealthier and the majority poor poorer. The report states that Kenya’s gap between the rich and the poor is among the widest in the world. "The wealthiest 10 per cent are pocketing 42 per cent of the country’s income, while the poorest 10 per cent earn less than one per cent," says the report, released in the middle of last year. In September last year, soon after the report was released, the President established the National Economic and Social Council to address the issue of poverty and wealth gap. President Kibaki chairs the council, with Finance minister David Mwiraria to chair it in his absence. Subukia MP Koigi wa Wamwere recently described Mr Kibaki as "President for the Rich". The matter of accessibility was brought into sharp focus by the President's Christmas and New Year tour of Coast Province, when assistant ministers Danson Mungatana and Morris Dzoro of the NAK faction in Narc accused a clique of Mr Kibaki's inner circle of shielding him from the public. Vocal pro-NAK backbenchers, Kibwezi MP Kalembe Ndile, Kinango MP Gonzi Rai, and Kisauni MP-elect Anania Mwaboza, joined the fray, with Mr Ndile saying the clique "is building a wall around the President and making him inaccessible." Mr Ndile named cabinet ministers Chris Murungaru, Kiraitu Murungi and Amos Kimunya and assistant minister Maina Kamanda as members of the clique. Mwea MP Alfred Nderitu, also of NAK, on Thursday said the President should remain accessible to all MPs and should not be shielded "by a clique of powerful individuals . . Only bodyguards should shield Kibaki for security reasons." Lands Minister Kimunya retorted that Mr Kibaki's style was not like his predecessor's. "Where Mr Moi went on provincial tours with a huge entourage of ministers, assistant minister, MPs, party leaders and administration officials, Mr Kibaki prefers a low-key entourage" . However, there was an ironical twist in Mr Kimunya's words: "He doesn't like crowds. He prefers people [ministers and other officials] to work and if he is visiting an area he prefers to have only the relevant MP or minister along." This raises the question of accessibility. But Cotu chief Francis Atwoli told the Sunday Nation: "I am a workers' representative and I know the President is not a shopsteward to be accessible to just anyone. He's the Head of State and not a District Commissioner or a Provincial Commissioner." Presidential Press Service chief Isaiah Kabira argued those claiming Mr Kibaki was aloof, distant and inaccessible were the ones out of touch with reality. Mr Kabira said: "Legislator Koigi wa Wamwere’s argument that President Kibaki is not committed to the poor is a barefaced falsehood, with clear political connotations and displays a deliberate attempt to ignore and whitewash policies the President has embarked on in the last two years." Mr Kimunya said the President often told his security detail to stop preventing anyone trying to reach him. Said Mr Kimunya: "Everyone has access. At Cabinet level we all have equal access, both at cabinet meetings and at the lunches we normally have afterwards; we can all speak to the President." Mr Kimunya suggested some people wanted to have access to "say and do things they cannot do in public." In a newspaper opinion piece on Wednesday, Mr Wamwere said it was his wish for the New Year that the President's main job be "to distribute freedom and resources in the form of land, businesses, jobs and services to all." In response, Mr Kabira said: "The legislator clearly ignores that the damage of two decades of deliberate scorched earth policies by the former government, that sent 60 per cent of our population into the poverty bracket, will not be reversed within two years. Indeed, an assessment of the policies of the Narc government will reveal that President Kibaki has not only pursued pro-poor policies but is committed to making Kenya a socially just and equitable society." President Kibaki's decision over the New Year not to give assent to the so-called Ngilu Health Bill which sought to create an all-inclusive National Social Health Insurance Scheme, is seen by critics as another sign the President does not care for the ordinary citizen. Nairobi Catholic Archbishop Ndingi mwana a'Nzeki, strongly criticised the President for not signing the Health Bill. Said the Archbishop: "Poor Kenyans are in dire need of free healthcare. If I was in charge, I would ensure that Kenyans get it today and not tomorrow." Catholic Bishop Boniface Lele of Kitui took issue with President Kibaki's stance, terming it "unsatisfactory and a slap in the face of the poor." "The church wishes to remind the Kibaki government that it was elected on the promise that it will ensure affordable medical care and we demand this scheme be implemented even if in a phased style. The sick, poor and vulnerable Kenyan voters who need affordable health care are being cheated by their government," Bishop Lele added. As if anticipating the "President for the rich" label, President Kibaki had the previous day asked former Taveta MP Basil Criticos not to evict squatters who have lived on his large farm for generations. The President asked Mr Criticos "to be humane" and let them stay. And he revealed the Government was negotiating with the National Bank of Kenya to buy part of the Criticos farm for squatters. The President, who had been prompted by Taveta MP Naomi Shabaan of Kanu, said: "Yes, the Government is in negotiations with the National Bank to take over sections of Criticos's land since he owes the bank a loan he took to run the sisal farm." The President also urged the Kenyatta family who also own huge tracts in the same area to heed the call of the squatters and donate a chunk for them. Mbita MP Otieno Kajwang' of the LDP asked the President to change his stand "for the sake of the millions of suffering Kenyans." Mr William Ntimama, a minister in the office of the president, said the President acted wisely by rejecting the Ngilu Bill because "it is financially unworkable." Mr Ntimama said there had not been "exhaustive consultations" among all the interested parties. He was afraid that implementing the Bill would scare away investors. Mr Wamwere, meanwhile, criticised the president for "failure to give poor people money for treatment." Defending his boss, Mr Kabira stated: "On matters of health the President has clearly stated that he stands for access to basic health care for all Kenyans, because proper health care is one of the pillars in the governments economic recovery strategy. He has stated that the country will implement a health care scheme that is sustainable now and in the long term." In response to those accusing the president of only serving the rich and ignoring the plight of the poor, Mr Kabira said: "This poor rich divide theory, was first propagated by Hon Otieno Kajwang', whose politics have been clear for all to see in the last two years. Hon Koigi should not seek to dismiss the gains of President Kibaki, because I know him to be a man who truly feels for the people of Kenya. He must however advise Mr Kajwang to be more vocal in coming up with policies that will help the fishermen of Mbita, a beautiful part of this country that could really benefit if Hon Kajwang was at the forefront of promoting it as a preferred local tourist destination." Accusations of being aloof and elitist have dogged Mr Mwai Kibaki all of his political life. The accusations reached a crescendo when in December 1991 Mr Kibaki left the then ruling Kanu party to form his own party, the Democratic Party of Kenya, surrounded by a group of politicians and others who had always been seen as the elite and blue blood of Kenyan politics by virtue of their wealth and connections. The media never missed an opportunity to depict Mr Kibaki's elitism, often taking pictures of him shooting rounds of golf. The favourite sport of the rich as well as Mr Kibaki himself. Some have argued that this perception cost Mr Kibaki the presidency in 1992 and 1997 because he was considered out of touch with the needs of ordinary Kenyans. This was as opposed to his former boss and then incumbent president Mr Moi who as a populist politician spent a lot of energy on appearing as a man of the people. Mr Moi would think nothing of stopping by a roadside kiosk to buy fruit and vegetables or even to have a cup of tea with ordinary people. Mr Moi eschewed elitist sports such as golf but would be seen enthusiastically supporting the Kenyan national soccer team at the stadium. The former president 's spin doctors put it about that on an evening their man preferred nothing better than eating roasted maize on the cob surrounded by old friends telling stories. There seem to be no such stories of Mr Kibaki's evenings and this goes to perpetuate the impression, not necesarily true, that he is a very private, and therefore "aloof" man. According to the book Mwai Kibaki: Economist for Kenya by Ng'ang'a Mbugua, published in 2003 by Sasa Sema Publications, as the youngest child of a rich Kenyan farmer there was no reason for Mwai Kibaki to go to school, after all his father had enough cattle, which needed looking after. But Kibaki Snr was persuaded by the local teacher and a preacher at the church to enrol his son at the Karima Mission School, run by Italian Catholics. He became renowned for his debating skills, his enquiring mind and his understanding of economics. Mwai Kibaki, baptised Emilio Stanley by the Italian priests, went on to study economics at Makerere University in Uganda, and in London, before returning to Kenya to work as Kanu's Executive Officer at the dawn of independence. The key to the President's way of doing things is to be found in the spirit of self reliance instilled in him by the missionaries who educated him as a child when he grew his own food as all students in the school were expected to do. The young Kibaki extended the art of self-reliance to his school holidays where he earned extra money by working as a turn boy on buses operated by the defunct Othaya African Bus Union.
ARCHIVIO NOTIZIE 2004